


Sheep May Safely Graze

by ExpatGirl



Series: Blade Runner AU [1]
Category: Blade Runner (1982), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Blade Runner, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Android Castiel, Angels as Replicants, Background Relationships, Bisexuality, Blood, Character Death, Chess Metaphors, Consent is Mandatory, Drinking, Egg Metaphors, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Major Character Death isn't any member of Team Free Will, Metaphors, Minor Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Neonoir, POV Multiple, Posthuman, Replicants, Sad Gay Android Sex, Sexual Content, Smoking, Swearing, We Are Not Machines Running Programs, Who Decides Who Gets to be a Person?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:07:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/ExpatGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Los Angeles, November, 2019<br/><i>"I know you came to find retiring skinjobs...distasteful, but there has never been anyone better at this job than you. Think about it. One last job, then you can do whatever the hell you want. Join Sam in Stanford. Go Offworld, start yourself a nice little family. Open that classic car shop you’ve been dreaming about, or even start a damn farm. This is your big break, boys. And if you won’t do it for the money, do it for old time’s sake. Do it for John’s sake. Come on.  It’s the family business. You’ll be saving people by hunting these things.”</i><br/>Sam and Dean looked at each other. They both knew the decision had already been made for them.</p><p>One last job: kill things that need killing.</p><p>Not really so simple though, is it?</p><p> </p><p>  <b>Note: Major Character Death isn't any member of Team Free Will, just FYI.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>   
>    
> 
> 
> Thank you to [eshtiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eshcaine/pseuds/eshtiel) for the wonderful artwork at the beginning and end of this work. You should check out their[graphics blog](https://electroglider.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I've tagged this as character death because, well, if you've seen _Blade Runner_ , you know why. I have saved as many people as I can, and I have made the ending as happy as is possible to make when something is based on a Philip K Dick novel.

Cuthbert Sinclair just wanted this day to be over. He’d already screened ten new employees before the name _Milton, Anna_ spilled in tinny syllables from the tannoy. Each test lasted exactly the length of one cigarette. Each person added one new layer to the blue blanket of smoke that filled his office. He was efficient that way. Practiced. Clean and well-oiled like the pre-War gun he wore at his side. He was good at his job. So good, in fact, that his colleagues jokingly called him The Magician: able to reveal a replicant in under twenty questions, as though by magic. But he was only human, and it had been a long day, with some anomalies that had required further investigation by someone in another department. Sinclair had felt the faint thrill of a possible retirement flare through him once or twice, the kind of controlled bloodlust that made him an expert in his field; but in the end they had all checked out human, just slightly odd. But being slightly odd was not a Capital offense, sadly. The day was starting to drag. He had the beginnings of a headache curling just behind his left eye.

There was a knock at his door.

Well, just because it was a testing day didn’t mean he couldn’t glean just a little enjoyment from it. It wasn’t a crime, after all, to get pleasure from what he did. He put on his most non-threatening expression and made his voice match. “Come in.”

The girl who entered was undeniably pretty, with a delicate face and long red hair. But her wide eyes and vague smile suggested to Sinclair that the Medical Technician post stamped on her paperwork was possibly beyond her current IQ. Well. This presented even more potential for enjoyment. He felt his headache retreat slightly at the thought.

“Please, sit down,” Sinclair said, smirking a little in anticipation.

She did so. He could not detect any signs of nervousness, but then, that smile seemed to be an effective mask for any possible kind of emotion. She continued to blink at him slowly as he set up the equipment and watched it go through its calibration protocol.

“So, you’ve been with us six days?” he asked, watching her carefully.

“Yes.”

When no more information was forthcoming, he asked: “Medical technician?”

“Is this part of the test?” Her voice was sweet but slow, and did not speak of any particular depth of feeling. Her eyes remained wide and vacant as she spoke.

Sinclair was beginning to suspect that she had either bribed the administrator of her last IQ test (that cherry-red mouth had its charms) or she was a replicant with a mental level of C. He would know soon enough.

“No, no,” Sinclair said. He smiled his pointed white smile at her, hoping to unnerve her, but got no response. “Don’t worry, you’ll know when it starts.”

She nodded, then looked up at the barred window as though she were bored. Or distracted. “I’ve never had one of these before,” she said. “I had an IQ test already this year but..”

“Reaction time is measured, just so you know. So please pay attention,” Sinclair cut in, watching for her response.

Anna blinked again. One slow flicker of coal-dark lashes, but nothing else suggested that she’d caught the bluntness of his tone. She didn’t reply.

“1187 Engel Avenue,” Sinclair said absently, after a moment, flicking through the paperwork on his desk.

“It’s the hotel.”

“What?”

“The hotel where I live,” Anna said. There was an eye-roll somewhere in that statement, though she had not turned her attention back to him. Instead, she was watching the smoke that followed the sluggish wake of the ceiling fan.

Sinclair narrowed his eyes at her, though she did not see it. “Nice place?” He sat down. The equipment beeped its readiness, and he flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette in a terse move that betrayed his irritation. He took a calming breath and admired the reflection of the lights in his newly-lacquered desk. He had paid for it with his own money, after accidentally marring its surface with a dropped match.

“It’s alright.” She shrugged. “Nothing fancy. Not paradise, but it’s not hell, either.” She looked now at the machine, which magnified her eye until it filled up the whole screen. Gold flecks could be seen among the brown, but when Sinclair regarded her flesh-and-blood face, the veiled light made them look black.

He cleared his throat. “You’re in the desert. You-”

“Is this the test now?”

“Yes. Pay attention. You’re in the desert, walking through the sand. You-”

“Why am I there?”

Sinclair took a deep drag of his cigarette. “What?”

“Why am I in the desert?” Again the lazy sweep of eyelashes, the slightly smudged look as she watched him, doe-eyed and blank as a doll. “How’d I get there?”

“You just...are,” Sinclair said, smoothing down the rough edges of his irritation and making his voice easy, friendly. “Maybe you’re fed up and want a break. Maybe you want to be alone. It’s all hypothetical, you see?” He took another drag.

Anna nodded, slowly.

“Alright. You’re in the desert, walking through the sand. You see a tortoise coming towards you and-”

“What’s a tortoise?”

Sinclair smiled again and resigned himself to a two-cigarette job. This had not happened in years. “Do you know what a turtle is?”

“Of course,” Anna said, and there was that suggestion of an eye-roll, though all she did was blink a little more rapidly this time.

“It’s the same thing,” Sinclair said, tapping his cigarette again.

“Never seen one. But, I know what you mean.”

And now, the fun might begin. “You flip the tortoise onto its back, and it lays there, its belly baking in the desert sun, trying to right itself.”

“Do you think of these questions yourself, or do they write them down for you?”

“Don’t interrupt, Miss Milton. You flip the tortoise onto its back, and it lays there, its belly baking in the sun, trying to right itself. But it can’t. It’s dying, and you’re not helping.” Sinclair sat forward, fixed her in the pincer of his gaze, waited for her to squirm. “Why aren’t you helping, Anna?”

“What do you mean, I’m not helping?” Here her blank look seemed to waver, the gold-black of her irises flickered back and forth slightly on the screen.

“I mean, you’re not helping. Why not, Anna?”

There was no answer. Anna sat back in her chair and looked at him, then down at her hands, which she had folded in her lap. Unless Sinclair was mistaken, she looked...distraught? Nervous? He couldn’t tell. But the timing was skewed now, anyway, and this question wouldn’t give him an accurate reading of anything except the test subject’s ability to be awkward.

“They’re just questions, Anna,” Sinclair said, choosing benevolent surrender as his means of attack. “And to answer your query, someone writes them down for me. The questions are meant to provoke an emotional response. Shall we continue?”

Anna nodded, but did not look up. Perhaps she didn’t understand what he meant.

Sinclair crushed the end of his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and lit another, a brief blossom of fire that subsided to a glowing tip.

“Now. Describe, using single words, only the good things that come to mind...about your mother.”

Anna looked up at that, her face as pale as death, dark eyes glinting oddly through the smoke.

“My mother?”

“That’s right,” Sinclair said, with an encouraging nod.

The china-doll vacancy vanished, and in its place was all the intensity of a flame, burning right into Sinclair’s skull.

“Let me tell you about my mother.”

The sound of the blast barely registered over the ambient noise of Sinclair’s office, but the effect of it pushed him back in his chair, and propelled the chair through the wall into the atrium. As the synapses in his brain fired for the last time, he felt neither pain nor surprise, but rather a detached sense of disgust at a burnt smell. He did not have time to recognize it as his own flesh.

His unfinished cigarette seared a hole in his desk before it extinguished.

****

Dean often found himself in Chinatown without quite knowing why he’d ended up there. Today, however, he had a very clear reason. He’d wanted to see a man about a part for his vehicle, and to do that meant--well, not the _black_ market, per se. More like the _grey_ market, he reasoned, as he sat on a bench in front of the noodle bar. Parts for the make and model he needed were increasingly rare, and every year transactions seemed to take on a slightly darker shade, get pushed a little further back into reeking alleyways, go through a longer chain of sketchy individuals. But it had to be done, and it wasn’t _technically_ illegal. Or at least, not any more illegal than a lot of the other things he did.

The old man at the noodle bar waved him over, now that one of the patrons had finally vacated their spot. He knew what he was going to order, but he also knew what the vendor was going to give him. They had been having the same conversation, more or less, for the last three years. True, he could always go to a different one--there were at least a dozen in this block alone--but this guy always gave him extra and didn’t charge him for it. Perhaps it was a lingering privilege of his former job. Whatever the reason, he wandered over, and, blinking the rain from his eyes, ordered the number four.

The old man nodded and smiled, and quickly produced something which was blatantly not what he’d asked for. Dean had never actually found out what it was that the old man insisted on serving him. He suspected it was meant to imitate beef, but he had no basis for comparison. Still, there was a generous helping of noodles on the side, and so he sat at the bar much less begrudgingly than he let on.

He’d only taken two bites, however, when he felt someone move behind him. Long-honed instinct caused him to tense up. He narrowed his focus onto the presence that seemed to materialize out of the rain, but he kept his eyes on his food. Damn it, he was hungry. He didn’t have time to be hassled for money or put through a dragnet.

A hand landed heavily on his shoulder, and Dean finally glanced up. The stubbled face and burly frame were vaguely familiar, but then, Dean knew a lot of people in one way or another. The man spoke Cityspeak with a hint of a Cajun accent, the weight of his hand anchoring Dean to the stool on which he sat. Dean knew, without seeing a badge, that he was looking at an LAPD man.

“He says you’re under arrest, Winchester,” the old man said, somewhat unexpectedly, having never before betrayed any knowledge of English.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Wrong guy, pal.”

The LAPD man said something else. “Okay. He says he has a job for you.”

“Oh yeah? Well tell him that I’m happy to discuss a fee with him, after I finish my food.” He took another bite of the ersatz dish in front of him.

“He says you and your brother are hunters.”

“ _Were_ hunters,” Dean said, around a mouthful of noodles. “Past tense. Sam’s retired. Has been for years. And I’m freelance only these days. You wanna talk price, fine, but wait until I’ve finished my lunch, pal. And there’s no guarantee I’ll say yes after such a rude introduction.”

The hand did not move from his shoulder, but dug in a little deeper. Dean had never had an ear for Cityspeak, that rough patois of a dozen different languages, but he could pick up a few words that meant something to him.

“Walker, huh?” Dean asked, setting down his chopsticks at last. He threw his head back and laughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Son of a bitch.” He stood, shoving an extravagantly large tip towards the old man with a wink. “Alright, fine. Let’s go.”

“I knew you’d see reason sooner or later, chief.” The man’s hand slid down the length of Dean’s back, to settle at the narrowest part, as they walked through the perpetual Chinatown throng.

“You seem to know a lot about me, _chief_ ,” Dean said, with a wry twist of his mouth. “And here I don’t even know your name.”

“Lafitte,” the man said. “Benny Lafitte. LAPD.”

“LAPD. Yeah, I figured,” Dean said, trying and failing to avoid a tray of spilled food. He looked unhappily down at his shoes. Lafitte was shepherding him, he knew, dissuading him from running, through the slight pressure of his hand. But Dean found he did not mind it, so he didn’t comment. There was nowhere to run, anyway.

Dean very nearly stepped into an ankle-deep puddle, but was expertly steered out of the way before he’d even realized what was happening. Well, points to the guy for saving his expensive new footwear, he guessed. “What’s Walker want with us, anyway?”

Lafitte shook his head, but kept scanning the crowd. “Didn’t say. He just said he needed to talk to you.”

They passed the new twenty-story billboard that had been erected over the course of the last week. It replaced the one whose circuits had gotten fried by the never ending rain. It was currently showing the standard Offworld propaganda on a loop, all golden light and wide-open spaces and lithe, accommodating replicants holding expensive-looking drinks. Occasionally a Coca-Cola or cigarette ad broke the halcyon image, only for it to glitter back to life a few moments later.

Dean had toyed with the idea of going Offworld more than a few times. He kept telling himself that it made sense: an apple-pie-and-picket-fence life, like the unremembered good old days. Who wouldn’t want the chance to get away from the crush of post-War earth? It was a clammy scrum of people, hemmed in on all sides by howling emptiness, and shadowy terrors that slithered through the damp neon air. Too much life, and at the same time, nothing but ash. Kansas, he’d heard, was still safe, but there’d be nothing for him there, now. Not that there was much in LA for him to speak of. Canada had begun to rebuild with pretty good success, but Canada seemed awfully cold. Offworld made the most sense. Find a wife, pick up a replicant or two, start afresh. Maybe save up to buy himself an animal, even. He’d come close to it all, once, before...Well.

Yeah: a girl, a house, a dog, what more could a guy like him ever want in life? It’s all Sam had ever wanted, after all. Dean might as well want it, too.

And yet, and yet. He’d never managed to make that final leap. Mostly, Offworld travel was expensive, and his money had a habit of disappearing on him. But also, something about it sat wrong under his skin. All that perfection, all those easy, eternal smiles. It didn’t seem natural, somehow.

“Where’ve you wandered off to?” Lafitte broke in on his gloomy reverie.

“Huh? Oh, sorry, man. I’m kinda preoccupied.”

“I can see that,” he said, with a suggestion of amusement in his eyes. He pointed to the sleek new car in front of them. It screamed _cop_ down to the bolts and rivets. “I’ve been trying to get you in the car for a few minutes now.”

Dean smiled his most charmingly sheepish smile, because that seemed to be the kind of thing that might work on Lafitte. “I could use a smoke, first.” He almost never smoked. Mostly he just carried around a stash of cigarettes in his father’s old case, in the event of an emergency; but he felt the need for one now. He didn’t know why. He wasn’t the nervous type. As he fished one out, he heard the phosphorescent hiss of a match being lit, and he looked up to find Lafitte offering him a light. “Thanks. Man, I haven’t _wanted_ one of these in a long time.”

Lafitte shrugged, affable and calm as he returned the red matchbook to his pocket. “No trouble. When the urge strikes, it strikes.” He leaned against the side of his car and followed the cloud of smoke from Dean’s cigarette as it rose into the heavy sky.

When they were airborne, Dean said, looking out of the passenger’s side window: “I don’t know what Walker thinks he’s doing. Sam’s done with hunting. No way you’ll get him out of that office of his, not when the University’s due to reopen next year. Hell, I was thinking of joining him in Stanford, myself, one of these days.”

Lafitte laughed at that, just a hint of a sound, but Dean heard the word _bullshit_ as clearly as if he’d spoken it. “Walker’s persuasive,” he said instead. “And where you go, Sam tends to follow, sooner or later. Everyone on the force knows that.” He shrugged, but kept his eyes firmly in front of him. “Don’t fret yourself, brother, I’m sure Gordon will make it worth your time.”

Dean crossed his arms and did his best not to look sullen. All he’d wanted was some fucking noodles and some engine parts. How the hell had he been corralled back into Gordon Walker’s orbit after all this time? How the hell had _Sam_ , for that matter?

The police department was much as he remembered it, a riddle of brutalist architecture under a veneer of New Deco. Water ran off of its nacreous sides in rivulets of argon blue and lithium pink. It was a pearl enclosing a hard black core. The hallways were still warrens of polished concrete and seasick green walls. Though he did not recognize anyone’s face, he recognized the same dour, hard-edged expression that he himself had seen in the mirror every day at the end of his shifts. It practically came standard issue. The years away had done only a little to soften it.

They reached the Rep-Detect department at last, several stories up. The pebbled glass on the door to Walker’s office revealed two vague shapes, one of which was, by Dean’s reckoning, too tall to fit in the door without stooping. He knocked with his heart already halfway to his mouth.

“Come in,” came a familiar, would-be friendly voice. As soon as Dean opened the door, he felt as though he had stepped into one of the bullfighting arenas he had read about in school. The bull, he remembered with a nauseous feeling, was always killed at the end. But he could not say whether Sam, now standing in front of him, or Gordon, now seated with steepled hands, was the bull.

“Dean,” Gordon said, sounding pleased, “Glad you could make it.” His teeth always looked so sharp. Dean had forgotten until just now, watching him grin.

“Gordon. Sam.” The second name came out as an almost-question, an upward turn at the tip of the tongue and a lift of the eyebrow. No one but Sam would have caught it.

“Hey, Dean. Sorry I didn’t call when I got into town. It was kind of...short notice.” Sam’s eyes warmed for an instant as they lit on Dean, then turned cold and hard again as his line of sight fell back on Gordon.

“Yeah, I bet.”

Stanford seemed to agree with Sam, Dean had to admit. He was neat and pressed and scrupulously clean, and his hair looked like it smelled of expensive shampoo. Dean suppressed a twinge of self-consciousness at his own, slightly more bedraggled look. Traipsing through soggy back alleys for hours was hard on a guy’s wardrobe, and he doubted he had Sam’s dry cleaning budget.

“The dream team back together,” Gordon said, turning his attention to Dean. He'd kind of liked it that Gordon seemed to prefer him, back when he and Walker were friends. It made him uncomfortable now. 

“Your officer practically dragged me from my office, Walker,” Sam said, clipped syllables ricocheting off the cold block walls. “And you pulled my brother off the streets. I think you owe us an explanation.”

“And a meal,” Dean put in. He could feel Sam’s eyes narrow in his direction at that. “What? A guy’s gotta eat.”

Gordon held up his hands. “Alright, alright. Just trying to be friendly, for old time’s sake. Benny, thank you, you can leave now.” Here Dean’s detainer gave a polite nod to Sam and a smile, that appeared genuine, to Dean.

“Let me know if you need anything,” he said, upon withdrawing, but Dean did not know who the offer was aimed at.

“He’s a good tracker,” Dean remarked, once Lafitte’s footsteps faded.

“Benny? Yes. He has a very particular skill-set, and finding people who don’t want to be found is one of them.” Gordon stretched and sat back a little in his chair, clearly more at ease now that it was only the three of them in the room. “Then again, you’ve never made a particular effort to hide, Dean. Still, only the best for one of my best.”

“Still waiting on that explanation, Gordon,” Sam said, crossing his arms. “And Dean’s not one of _your_ anything, not any more.”

“Temper, temper, Sam,” Gordon chided. There was a hint of irritation there, but Gordon maintained his composure. “You’ll get your explanation.” He stood. He still wore the drab, utilitarian layers of a plainclothes cop, rather than the sharply-tailored suits of most supervisors. For all Gordon’s faults, losing touch with his boots-on-the-ground officers was not one of them. He tucked a clipboard under his arm and moved towards the communications cubicle in the back. “Come on, there’s something I want you both to see. I think you’ll find it...interesting.”

****

The video ended with the replicant, Anna, punching her way through an exterior wall, almost a meter thick, and leaving Sinclair’s office in ruins. The next security camera footage showed her muscling herself into an air vent on the side of the building with the uncanny ease of a machine. Sam still found it disconcerting, watching a tiny girl like that display the kind of strength that not even a man of his size could match. There was no further footage, on either the Tyrell or municipal cameras. However she’d gotten away, she’d gotten away cleanly. He suspected that she’d had help, though whether that help came from inside or outside, he could not say.

One rogue replicant hardly required press-ganging his brother and him back into service, though.

Ruby, the woman they’d sent to bring Sam in, had clearly been more than capable, despite being scarcely taller than Anna. He could have easily overpowered her and fled, but he had the distinct impression that he’d find his hand severed the moment he tried to lift it against her. Still, she’d smiled at him warmly, and her manner was easy and reassuring, spiked with sarcastic wit. He had debated asking her out for a coffee for the duration of the ride here. They’d known _exactly_ who to send, he realized. He only wondered why they didn’t send her, or Lafitte, after this one. Either of them could have handled it.

Sam could see that Dean was thinking the same thing, judging by the way he leaned with arms crossed, against the door frame.

“Nasty business,” Gordon commented when the video feed dissolved to grainy static.

“Most homicides are,” Sam retorted, earning a quiet chuckle from Dean. “I still don’t see what this has to do with us. Get one of your active officers to retire it.”

“Sam’s right,” Dean said, pushing away from his slouch and coming to stand next to him. “You’ve got plenty of people who can take down one little replicant. Send one of your goons and let us get on with our lives.”

“One skinjob? Sure,” Gordon said. The slur fell lightly from his mouth, making Sam wince. Gordon walked back towards his desk, making notes as he went. “But this isn’t _one_ , this is _four_.”

Sam paused at that, then shook his head. “Okay, four rogues might need two hunters--which, I remind you, we are not--but you’ve got more than enough people at your disposal, Gordon.”

Gordon nodded, seeming to acquiesce, and sat down. He handed over a thick manilla folder, held closed with a rubber band, and typed something into his computer. “Well, Sam, if we were talking about any of your older Nexus Models, say a 4 or a 5, or one of the other mining drones, I’d agree with you. But we’re looking at four Nexus 6 skinjobs set loose in our fair city.”

“Four _Nexus 6_ types?” Dean asked, aghast. “Shit.”

Gordon pointed at him appreciatively, and Sam felt his heart sink a little.

“Be that as it may,” Sam said, adopting his most measured tone of voice and looking at Dean, “this isn’t our thing. Not any more.”

“My boy, this is _exactly_ your thing,” Gordon said, underlining something on his clipboard in one definitive movement. “You and Dean are the best hunters in the history of the department. At one time, you were the best in the whole country. Not even the Langley boys could touch you. And I know,” Gordon said, cutting off the interruption Dean had opened his mouth to make, “I know things went a little...pear-shaped after your father died. But we won’t hold that against you. Nobody’s perfect.” He smiled again, and his smile had blood behind it.

Sam could feel Dean bristle at that. He didn’t know what Gordon was hoping to accomplish by bringing up their father, but whatever it was, it was only going to set Dean on edge.

“No, you know what? Screw you, Walker. You want to take down a few replicants, get someone on your payroll to do it. We’re not murderers-for-hire, not for you, not for anyone.”

“Well, that’s disappointing, Dean,” Gordon said, with a maliciously flat tone of voice. “Especially when I know you, in particular are anything-for-hire for the right fee.” Sam’s hand involuntarily curled into a fist at that, and Gordon seemed to realize that he’d overstepped the mark he’d been treading for the last few minutes. “Apologies. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” This was aimed at Sam. “Your business is your business. But what I will say is this: you two know better than anyone that, in this town, you’re either a cop or you’re a nobody.”

“What do you mean, Gordon?” Sam asked, keeping his voice low, knowing that Walker would feel the edge to it.

“I mean,” Gordon said, turning his computer screen towards them now, “that you both have big plans for your lives. You’re a _scholar_ now, Sam. A real man of letters. The University will be lucky to have someone like you on their staff when they’re finally able to reopen. I hear you’ve been instrumental in rebuilding their pre-War collection. This has been in the works for almost forty years, Sam! It would be an absolute _shame_ for them to lose funding, or to lose anything...or anyone...this close to their goal.”

“Walker,” Dean’s voice was a growl. Sam spared a glance out of the corner of his eye and saw the look of a man about to tear a throat out with his teeth. He put a hand on Dean’s arm, and Dean relaxed a fraction.

Gordon continued, smoothly, as though he hadn’t heard. “On the other hand, the kind of bounty that _this_ kind of job will bring in...” He gave a low whistle. “Well. You could dedicate yourself to the most arcane research imaginable, Sam, and wouldn’t have to worry about tenure. Heck, you could open your _own_ university Offworld with this kind of cash.”

He turned to Dean, then, and his face was a mask of magnanimity against Dean’s quiet seething. “And Dean, honestly, you know I’m a man of my word. I’ll make this worth your time and effort. I know you came to find retiring skinjobs...distasteful, but there has never been anyone better at this job than you. Think about it. One last job, then you can do whatever the hell you want. Join Sam in Stanford. Go Offworld, start yourself a nice little family. Open that classic car shop you’ve been dreaming about, or even start a damn _farm_. This is your big break, boys. And if you won’t do it for the money, do it for old time’s sake. Do it for John’s sake. Come on. It’s the family business. You’ll be saving people by hunting these things.”

Sam and Dean looked at each other. They both knew the decision had already been made for them.

“Good,” Gordon said, clapping his hands together decisively. “Open that folder and we’ll go through the details of our four fugitives.” The screen on his desk displayed the face of the replicant in the video. It was delicately-featured and slightly sad of eye, and, Sam realized, exactly the kind of person Dean would go soft at the edges for. He’d always had a thing for the slightly sad ones.

“Anna, Nexus 6, lately of the Tannhauser colony, basic Med-Bay personnel. Sinclair’s notes suggest he thought she’d either lied on her IQ test, or was a Mental Level C. She’s actually Level B. I’m surprised at Sinclair. He was usually much more insightful than that. But then, she played it pretty well, for a skinjob. I wonder if she picked the name Milton herself.”

It went on like that for over an hour, each replicant’s specs dissected in clinical detail, until each face that flickered on the screen reduced down to a series of ones and zeroes, synthetic bone and blood and meat. _Hannah_ became a basic pleasure class model, standard issue for military clubs in the outer colonies (“She’s the one that tried to break into Tyrell’s office ten days ago, we think.”); _Balthazar_ , became an assassin class model, designed for frontier murder-squads.

“And finally,” Gordon said, flicking to the last image, “this, boys, is our ringleader. Lucifer. Combat model, Level A across the board. Optimum self-sufficiency, the perfect super soldier. A literal killing machine.”

“ _Jesus Christ,_ ” Dean said, between clenched teeth, “Who thought that was a good idea?”

“Michael Tyrell, apparently, and the Department of Defense agreed with him. This is a very valuable bit of property, my friends. And also the fomenter of the little rebellion. As you can see from the notes, there were no survivors on the shuttle they commandeered two weeks ago. I don’t have to tell you what the inside of that ship looked like when we found it.”

“Why would you design a replicant that can out think and outmatch a human being like that on every level? It’s basically a loose nuke,” Sam said, scrubbing his hand across his face. His eyes felt gritty from stress and exhaustion. He was supposed to be in a meeting right now with some councilors from Shanghai. He was hoping to secure the loan of part of their pre-War literature collection. He hoped his assistant had managed to beg them off successfully. _Three days, Jess_ , he’d told her. _I’ll be back by Monday._

Monday. Right.

“The four-year lifespan is supposed to prevent this kind of thing,” Gordon said. “You know, make them easier to control. They don’t have time to develop independent thoughts and feelings before they fry up. They used to be functionally immortal, you know, but the mining colony uprisings of 2012 put a stop to that. There’s an automatic kill-switch on a timer, now, set at the date of inception. You get the perfect tool and no awkward toddler years.”

“In theory,” Dean said.

“So it would seem,” Gordon admitted.

“I don’t get it,” Sam said. “Why risk coming back here at all? They know it’s an immediate death sentence when they’re caught. Why go after Tyrell?”

Gordon shrugged. “I want you to find out. Apparently Tyrell’s got a Nexus 6 at his headquarters, so go put a machine on it. I’ve already put in a call to his assistant. They know you’re coming. Anyway, boys, I’m glad to have you on board. I’ll wire you the first of your fee by the end of the day. You’ll have access to anything you need. Money, weapons, you name it.” He did not even attempt to shake their hands; he knew better. “Oh, I should say, though, there is one condition.”

“Condition?” Sam asked, narrowing his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Dean asked.

“Benny will check up on you periodically, you know, just to make sure you’ve got everything you need.”

“You mean, just to make sure we stay on-leash,” Dean snapped, turning the collar of his overcoat up to his chin.

Gordon shrugged. “Don’t think of it like that, boys. Think of it like...having an angel on your shoulder. Ruby had to go back to our San Francisco office, I’m afraid, but she, uh, left you her number, Sam.” He grinned, another sharp display of teeth, and slid a slip of paper across the desk.

Outside, on the steps of the building, they turned to look at each other through the thick air. “I could use a fucking drink,” Dean said.

“Same,” Sam agreed.

“Alright, Sammy, let’s hit the nearest bar and see if we can’t burn through a little bit of Walker’s money.”

“And after that?”

“I think we need to speak to the man himself.”

“Who? Michael Tyrell?”

“The one and only. Hey, if our fugitives want to go straight to the source, we might as well do the same. We can test that replicant of his while we’re there, but I think it’d be more useful to speak to the guy pulling the strings rather than the puppet, don’t you?”

Sam laughed, the sound breaking loose from him almost unbidden, easing the constricted feeling that had plagued him for the last five hours. “Go big or go home, I guess.”

“Exactly,” Dean grinned at him. “We’ll hit up Tyrell in the morning. Right now? We’ve got work to do.”


	2. Chapter 2

Dean was forcibly reminded of his age as he slumped in the passenger’s seat of Benny’s car. It was, perhaps, a bit later in the morning than he’d originally planned. He nursed some kind of health shake that Sam had made him drink. Dean was not a picky eater, and yet this was testing his love of all things remotely edible. It tasted of chlorophyll and minerals, mostly, and slid sluggishly down his throat in the most disagreeable manner. But Sam had insisted it was a miracle cure for hangovers, and Dean didn’t have the rebound period he’d had in his youth. Perhaps that tenth bottle of El Sol had been a mistake. Or maybe it was those shots of...whatever that had been. He’d been too distracted by the dark-haired beauty behind the counter, with her heart-shaped face and blood-red smile, to pay much attention at that point. Sam had finally cut him off, and pulled him away from her, as the clock struck midnight. They had crashed in Dean’s penthouse (controlled rent was one of the vestigial perks of once having worn a badge). Not even the amazing water pressure in Dean’s shower could wash away all of the lingering effects of last night, but he tried not to grumble too much as he downed the brownish-green concoction. Tried.

“Chocolate flavor. Like hell,” Dean said, taking another sip.

“Just drink it, Dean,” Sam said from the back seat. He kept throwing narrow looks at their driver when he thought Benny wasn’t looking, and Dean could see the mistrust written plainly on his brother’s face. Well, what could you do? Walker wanted a bead on them. There was no way around that, and Benny had promised to stay out of their way as much as he could. It rankled Dean to have any kind of chaperone, but this was about as good as it was going to get.

“After you’re done with the debrief at the station, I’ll buy you some noodles,” Benny chuckled, meeting Dean’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“He’ll be fine,” Sam said curtly.

“Oh, I know. I’m sure the stuff you gave him will have him right as rain in no time. Still, I felt awful rude for interrupting your lunch yesterday, Dean.” He smiled and said something in Cityspeak that caused Sam to roll his eyes, but neither bothered to elaborate on what it was.

Benny dropped them off in front of the Tyrell Offices with a wink and a ‘good luck’ that made Sam glower and Dean look down at his shoes.

“I kinda want a cigarette,” Dean groused, as he looked up at the gleaming spire of glass.

“At _nine o’clock_ in the morning? You only ever smoke when you’re out at a bar, Dean.”

“Usually, yeah, I know.” Dean shrugged. “Don’t know why the feeling struck all of a sudden. Oh, well. Let’s get this show on the road, Sammy.”

“You sure you’re ready for this?” Sam asked, looking at him from under raised brows.

“I was born ready. Come on.”

The elevator bore them smoothly upwards for several long minutes. The glass front of the building allowed a view of the city at ever-increasing altitude, which Sam seemed to find slightly thrilling. Dean had to close his eyes, however, once they’d ascended above the tenth floor.

“Still afraid of heights, Dean?” The glee in Sam’s voice was evident, even though he couldn’t see his face.

“I’m not afraid of _heights_ , Sam,” Dean said, cracking one eye open in the most threatening manner he could manage. “I’m afraid of _falling_ from heights. That’s a perfectly reasonable fear from a human being to have.”

“We’re safer on this thing than we are in a car,” Sam pointed out, turning back to the view.

“Those don’t go above third story level, and the road-going ones come equipped with seatbelts. Also, shut up, Sam.”

Sam just laughed. Eventually the elevator crawled to a halt and there came a low hydraulic hiss that heralded the opening of the doors. Dean opened his eyes and straightened his coat. They stepped, in perfect sync, into the burnished light of Michael Tyrell’s office courtyard. Here was the beating heart of the Tyrell Corporation: purveyors of fine mechanical lifeforms for earth and beyond. _More Human Than Human_ ran the company catchphrase, and, looking around him now, visions of Offworld swam in Dean’s head. More perfect than perfect.

One of the walls projected a scene of alpine splendor beyond an ivory colonnade. The distant mountains were stippled pink and and blue in the sunlight, as clouds floated past deep green forests. In the distance, Dean saw the mirrored oval of a lake, rippling in the breeze. And wait, there actually _was_ a breeze, pine-scented and warm, coming from the vents above them. The other two walls, the ones not housing the elevator shaft, were inset with alcoves around the doors. Each one held the kind of statuary that Dean associated with museums, or temples, or people with too much money--largely lacking limbs and clothing. Neither he nor Sam could help it; they both stopped, dumbstruck at the sight.

Behind the desk there stood a bronze eagle statue, glittering warmly in the light, and in front of it there was a tall perch holding an owl. For a moment, Dean thought perhaps it, too, was a statue, but at their approach it took flight, soaring on silent wings to a point above their heads. They turned to follow its path.

“Do you like our owl?”

Dean’s head snapped around at the question, suddenly tense. He had not even seen the figure sitting behind the desk, being so overwhelmed with the grandeur of the courtyard. The voice cut like gravel against the hyper-smooth edges of the scene around them. The owner of the voice now stood, framed on either side by the gilded wings of the eagle. Dean felt a swooping sensation in his stomach at the sight, not unlike the one he had felt during the upward surge of the elevator a few minutes ago. It might have been the lingering effects of the altitude.

“Beautiful,” Sam said, appreciatively, turning his eyes back to the bird in question.

“Is it artificial?” Dean asked.

“Of course it is,” the man said, sounding irritated. He became more distinct as he walked towards them. He moved with slow, measured steps, which rang out through the room.

“Must be expensive,” Dean said, straightening his collar.

“Very.” His eyes moved back and forth between the two men in front of him, before settling firmly on Dean, and Dean felt their gazes slide together with an almost audible click. There was an intensity there that he found both compelling and unsettling; the look of a lioness across the river, or a bird of prey about to dive.

He guessed, anyway.

And where had _that_ come from? Dean’s only knowledge of any kind of wild animal came from the pre-War nature programs that Sam had liked to watch when they were children. He had not thought of them in years, and yet, suddenly the images roared to life in his mind under that steely stare. “I’m Castiel,” the man said, extending a hand.

“Winchester.” Dean took it. The guy had a firm grip and a tan, both of which spoke of wholesome outdoor pursuits. The finely-tailored suit he wore suggested that he had the money for such things. Dean didn’t let go as he said: “I’m Dean, and this is my brother, Sam.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Castiel said, finally withdrawing and offering a handshake to Sam. His tone was impeccably polite, but his expression stayed cool, just this side of severe.

“Likewise,” Sam said, matching it.

“It seems that you and your brother feel our work is...not of benefit to the public.”

Sam shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. A replicant is like any other machine. It’s either a benefit or a hazard, depending on how it’s used. The tool itself is neutral.”

“And if it’s a benefit, it’s not our problem,” Dean added. The weight of Castiel’s regard settled on him again and he did his best not to shift from foot to foot. After a moment, Castiel nodded for them to follow him through the tall lacquered doors that lead to Michael Tyrell’s office.

“My cousin will be with you shortly, gentlemen,” Castiel was saying, guiding them to their seats at one side of a long, polished table. He took up a tea tray from a smaller table. It was antique by the look of it. He poured two small cups of amber liquid that sent fragrant steam curling towards the ceiling. “He’s currently on a call with one of our clients, but he wanted to speak to you personally.” He did not pour a cup for himself, but sat down across from them and settled his hands gracefully in front of him, as though he was used to waiting.

“Well that’s good,” Dean said, taking a tentative sip of his tea. “Because we weren’t planning on leaving here until we’d talked to him.”

Castiel raised one eyebrow, very slightly, but otherwise gave no indication that he found Dean’s tone offensive. Indeed, there seemed to be a fleeting smile on his face as he looked over at him. “Then I suppose it’s a blessing that our interests are so well-aligned in this instance, officer.”

“Listen, Castiel,” Dean began, then shook his head. “Castiel _Tyrell_? That’s quite a mouthful.”

“It’s Novak, actually.”

“Still. Mind if I call you Cas?”

“Do, if it pleases you.” Again the ghost of a smile appeared.

“Yeah. Right, okay.” Dean had somehow forgotten that he had planned to ask a question, and he found himself in an impromptu staring match with Tyrell’s cousin, without knowing how it happened.

Next to him, Sam cleared his throat.

“Listen, um, Cas...we wanted to talk about testing the Nexus 6 you have...”

But the question was cut off as a small, black and white figure jumped up in front of Cas.

“A cat?” Sam asked.

Cas looked at him with an expression as flat as the table on which the animal now stood. “Indeed, officer.”

Dean sneezed, unexpectedly, and Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Real?”

“She is, yes,” he reached up to run his hand along the sleek black arc of her back, and she pushed up into his hand affectionately. “Our pride and joy, as you might imagine. She isn’t supposed to get on the table. But I’ve learned never to get into a war of attrition with a cat. The cat will always win.” The cat flicked her plume-like tail as she walked away, aware of her audience and their admiration, in the way that cats were always said to be. “We’re hoping to find a mate for her one day soon.”

Dean sneezed again, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “A _real cat_? But that must have cost…”

“Are you going to administer an empathy test?” A voice said from a shadowy corner of the room. Dean and Sam both jumped a little, but Cas showed no surprise, merely turned his head slowly towards the source of the sound. Michael Tyrell stepped into the office, with the owl perched on his shoulder. It had to be him. Dean could see the family resemblance as he approached: dark hair, blue eyes that seemed to have only one intensity setting (which was to say, _maximum)_ and almost alarmingly handsome. Roughly the same age as Cas, shockingly young to be running such a successful company; but then, all accounts painted him as a prodigy. His father’s favorite. “Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil? Involuntary dilation of the iris?”

“It’s called Voight-Kampff for short,” Dean said, standing up, a beat behind the others.

“Officers, Dr Michael Tyrell,” Cas said. “Michael, this is Sam Winchester and his brother, Dean. They’re the hunters I mentioned to you yesterday.” Another round of handshakes, this one even more vice-like than the one he had exchanged with Cas. As Michael reached across to Dean, the owl on his shoulder flared its wings and flew off with a wink of its mechanical eyes.

Tyrell gave a formal sort of half-bow as they finished, the mark of an expensive and archaic education. “Which one of you will be administering this test?” he asked.

“I will,” Dean said, sitting again and opening up the hard case that housed the portable equipment. “Sam was wondering if he could speak to one of your R and D people.” He phrased this as politely as he could, but hoped that his tone conveyed that this was not a request.

Tyrell raised one eyebrow, another shared family trait, but smiled politely enough and said: “Of course. The vice president of Research and Development is here today, actually, so you’re in luck. Doctor Naomi Eldon. One of the finest researchers in the country. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to answer any questions you have. Come, I’ll take her to you myself. When I return,” he said, turning to Dean, “I’d like to see it demonstrated.”

“Where’s the subject?” Sam asked.

“I want to see it work on a _person_ , Officer Winchester.” Tyrell smiled more broadly this time, but his eyes remained cold. Dean was suddenly reminded of his father, and could not quite say why. “I want to see a negative result before I provide you with a positive.”

Dean frowned and paused in his set-up. “What’s that going to prove?”

“Indulge me.”

“You want me to run it on _you_?” Well, rich people were eccentric, he knew.

“Try him,” Tyrell said, pointing to Cas, who blinked in surprise, before his face resumed its normal composure. Tyrell turned back to Sam. “Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you down to Doctor Eldon’s office.”

The echoes of their footfalls died away and Dean was suddenly alone with Cas, who was now watching the testing machine with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. “Will it hurt?”

“The VK test? No, it won’t hurt. It’s much scarier-looking than it actually is. Never taken one before, huh?”

Cas looked at him and frowned a little. “Well, no. I’ve never had a reason to. But Michael has been used to having his own way, ever since we were children. So I suppose we’d better do as he says.”

“You don’t _have to_ take it, just because he wants you to,” Dean said, feeling a strange flare of protectiveness in his gut. “Only a law enforcement official can compel you to take it.”

“Such as yourself?”

“Well, yes…” Dean said, uncomfortably. _Was_ he a law enforcement official? He guessed, technically, he could be considered one, since he was on Walker’s payroll until this case was wrapped up. But that wasn’t what bothered him about the question. “But I wouldn’t. Not without probable cause. I’m not the kind of guy that gets off on that kind of thing.”

“No? What kind of thing do you get off on, then?”

Dean would have liked to pretend that he didn’t choke on his own saliva at the question, and that it was merely a lingering effect of the cat’s presence that caused it, but he knew he’d be lying.

Cas frowned more deeply. “Apologies,” he said, canting his head slightly as he watched Dean, “I’ve said something wrong.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Dean said, taking off his coat and sitting down hastily. “Just...making conversation. And, you know, letting you know you’ve got some say in the matter.”

“Well, thank you, officer. I appreciate you standing up for my right to exercise free will,” Cas said, removing his suit jacket and sitting down across from Dean again, this time separated by the whirring bulk of the VK machine. He loosened his tie, pulling at it as though it was chafing him, and rolled his sleeves up to the elbow in a careful, practiced motion that exposed the tanned skin of his forearms. He caught Dean watching him. “I hope you don’t mind. I normally work with Dr Eldon, so I don’t often have to be quite so dressed up. I find these things,” he said, tugging at the tie again, “a bit confining.”

“I thought you were Tyrell’s assistant,” Dean said, around the lump in his throat.

“Interim.”

“What do you mean?”

“His previous assistant, Rachael, had to leave at short notice, I’m afraid. I’ve worked in R and D for the last two or so years, but I’m filling in while a replacement is found. A shame, really. I liked Rachael. My people skills are...rusty. As I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“No, um. Not...I mean, you’re not…”

“May I ask you a personal question?” Cas asked, saving Dean from one kind of embarrassment with the threat of another.

He cleared his throat. “Sure.”

“Have you ever retired a human by mistake?”

Dean clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. “No.”

That intense gaze pinned him again. “But in your line of work, that’s a risk…”

“All set up, are we?”

“Oh, hello, Michael. Yes, I believe we are. Is that right, officer?”

“Call me Dean.”

“Very well, Dean,” Cas said, glancing down at his hands for a brief moment with an expression Dean had trouble reading. When he looked up, however, he had regained his businesslike demeanor.

“To answer your question, Dr Tyrell, yes, everything’s ready to go,” Dean said.

“Excellent.”

“May I smoke?” Cas asked, somewhat unexpectedly.

“It won’t affect the test,” Dean said, with a shrug.

“Thank you.” Cas produced a plain silver cigarette case from the pocket of his trousers, exquisitely plain and no doubt extremely expensive. He put a cigarette in his mouth and reached into the other pocket, obviously expecting a matchbook, but then he frowned. “Hmmm,” came the displeased noise, a moment later.

But Dean was prepared, after his strange nicotine craving yesterday. The lighter, a long-ago gift from Sam, was already lit as Cas looked up at him.

“Oh,” he said, giving that rapid little blink that betrayed his surprise. “Thank you.” He leaned around the VK machine to accept, and he steadied Dean’s hand with his own. The glow of the flame highlighted the sharp planes of his jaw and cheekbones as the cigarette caught. “I’m not much of a smoker, normally,” he said, as he sat back.

“Me neither,” Dean said. “Alcohol is usually my poison of choice. But when the urge strikes, it strikes, you know?”

“Gentlemen, if we could begin? I’m sure this investigation is costing the good people of this city a fair amount of money.”

“Yes, of course,” Dean said, pulling down the cuffs of his shirt. He looked up at Cas, who was watching him patiently. “I’m going to ask you a series of questions. Just relax. Answer as simply as you can.”

“Alright.”

“It's your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet.”

“I wouldn't accept it. Also, I'd report the person who gave it to me to the police.” No hesitation. No anomaly on the reading.

“You've got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection, plus the killing jar.”

“I'd take him to the doctor,” Cas said, releasing a stream of smoke. It swirled around his head in a blue halo.

“You're watching television. Suddenly you realize there's a wasp crawling on your arm.”

“I'd kill it.” Cas tapped the ash from his cigarette and Dean drew his brows together. Not...an answer he was used to hearing. But the machine registered the response within the acceptable range.

“You're reading a magazine. You come across a full-page nude photo of a man sunbathing.”

“Is this testing whether I’m a replicant, or a homosexual, Officer Winchester?” There was amusement in his voice, and again that slightly raised eyebrow as he looked across the table at Dean.

Dean rubbed the back of his neck, then brought his hand down to grip the edge of the table when he realized what he was doing. “Just answer the question, please. You show it to your wife, and she likes it so much she hangs it on the bedroom wall.”

Cas shrugged. “And?”

“And? And how does that make you feel?”

“It wouldn’t bother me. I’m not the jealous type. And perhaps it’s a nice photo.”

Dean did not look up, but he could tell Cas was trying not to smile.

Dean cleared his throat again and continued with the questioning.

How long was Tyrell expecting to keep this up? What was his game?

****

They had sent him from the room after a strange question about a play. Something about oysters and a boiled dog. He hadn’t been able to think of an answer, not even a one-word reply, which was disturbing, somehow. It was like his mind had gone momentarily blank. And yet, thinking on it, what was he meant to say to such a thing? Surely a play, which was a collection of false actions and things made to look like reality, would not use an _actual_ dog? Of course not. The idea was laughable. Perhaps Dean had finally grown tired of indulging Michael after asking over a hundred questions. Clearly was it.

There was a Nexus-6.2 model in the R and D lab. The gender had not yet been assigned, nor the permanent skin applied, and so it still lay inactive in its bed, silver and sexless as an angel. Nevertheless, perhaps he should go fetch it? The officer who rang yesterday had said that they wanted to test a Nexus-6. It hardly mattered if the vessel wasn’t complete yet. In every way that mattered, it was finished. It would push the incept date up by a week or two; but perhaps they could reset it when they deactivated the replicant to complete the skin work? Naomi had once mentioned that such a thing might be possible. He walked back out to the courtyard, and debated what to do. He stopped to absently pet the company cat, where she sat blinking sleepily at him from under a statue’s legs.

Cas felt strangely unsettled, as though he had forgotten to do something important, or was trying to build something with a page of the instructions missing. He was used to feeling calm and driven in all his actions, a gift of his tremendous focus and willpower. He was ill-suited for indecision, and yet the feeling had been plaguing him for weeks now.

He hesitated by the elevator, deciding whether to go down to the R and D department and bring up the prototype for Dean to examine, or up to the top floor, where the family apartments and garden were, now that he was no longer needed. He should go down to R and D. Dean would find it helpful, Cas was sure, and he felt driven to accommodate Dean in a way that did not entirely have to do with his badge.

Michael would appreciate his initiative, too. He had commended him for it before. And maybe it would make up for the argument they’d had a few weeks ago about removing the compulsory four-year lifespan. These machines were feats of engineering, he’d reasoned, the very bleeding edge of technology, and surely this kind of planned obsolescence was a detriment to their work. Replicants learned and developed in a way almost like human beings--surely they would become more skilled at their jobs, better able to serve, as they accumulated new experiences and knowledge. The rebellious streak could be mitigated, somehow, surely, and…

Cas shook his head. No. Michael had been so upset with him at the suggestion that he shuddered to think about it now. He pictured himself standing in front of the desk, staring at Michael’s hard, impassive eyes and Naomi’s grim expression as she jotted down notes on her clipboard, and he felt his throat constrict. Michael Tyrell had not come by his fearsome reputation accidentally, and though there were no raised voices, as there had been when they were younger, Cas had felt the ice under him crack.

He shook his head sharply, to clear the unpleasant memory.

No, when Michael wanted to bring in the replicant for testing, he would ask for it himself. Castiel would not interfere.

He pushed the button for the top floor with a feeling of relief.

The suite of apartments that housed his family were crowned by a roof-top garden, some fifty stories above the city and encased in a dome of glass that kept the air free from pollutants. It was cleaned multiple times a day by a pair of Nexus-5s, always a male and female. There were very few Nexus-5s left in production, and Michael mostly used them for maintenance work on the company grounds. The Sixes were too valuable, too advanced for such work. The Fives were more primitive: too smooth in their expressions, too uniform, and there tended to be a half second delay in their reflexes that sometimes caused uneven blinking--surface imperfections that hinted at the lower processing power of their brains. These had just finished their mid-morning pass and were now preparing to rappel back down to the street, checking their ropes and ties. He waved to them politely as he passed by and they, as usual, seemed surprised, but returned the gesture.

The garden contained one of every kind of tree and plant from pre-War America, and was lit by a series of intricate sunlight-mimicking lamps to reproduce the seasons. November meant pomegranates and oranges, and bare branches reaching up towards the artificial sky. The curve of the dome scattered the light, made it Rayleigh blue. Castiel continued into the downward-sloping hallway that gave way to the cool white interior of his home, in the level just below the garden.

He needed to clear his head, and his lungs. He had to rid himself of this strange mental tremor he seemed to have acquired, and he had to do so before it began to impact his work. Perhaps he was still shaken by the thought of a rogue replicant attempting to make its way into the building, and very nearly succeeding. What could she have possibly hoped to accomplish? What would she have done if she’d succeeded?

He pushed that thought away, too. It was another skill he had learned to hone, razor-sharp.

Castiel liked his house. It was simple, bordering on spartan, but comfortable and full of light. He didn’t see the need to clutter every surface with knick-knacks and mementos. The ones he had meant a great deal to him, and he cherished them, gave them pride of place throughout the space. He let his gaze wander to them now as he shed his work clothes and made his way to the bedroom. There was the photo of Michael, Gabriel and him in the Yellowstone Exclusion Zone, the year before Gabriel died. It was a family trip that had cost the GDP of several small nations, but which had been worth it to see animals, _real_ animals: two squirrels and even some kind of small brown birds that had flitted upwards from branch to branch, like leaves in reverse. Gabriel had commented on how much money any of them would net; but of course, bringing an animal out of the Exclusion Zone was punishable by life imprisonment, and so he’d only said it quietly, when none of the rangers had been around. Apparently there were many more animals in the Exclusion Zones now. Maybe he should plan another trip.

And there was the sculpture of the unicorn that his ex-girlfriend, Amelia, had made for him, after their second anniversary. It was cream-colored, with silver flecks from the glaze. He didn’t know why he kept that one, actually. It caused a sort of bittersweet pain whenever he looked at it (some days more bitter than sweet, it was true) and yet he could not bring himself to throw it out. It seemed too important.

He carefully hung his clothes up and changed into a pair of running shorts. Yes. A run. A run was what he needed. The calming rush of wind past his body as he propelled himself forward, that trance-like state when he felt he could go for days and not tire. It felt like...flying. Still, Michael had warned him not to overexert himself, and so he dutifully set his timer for 90 minutes. He reminded himself that his cousin only had his best interests at heart. He loved his family. He would do his best to make them proud.

He ran. He tried not to think. He tried not to think.

 

He couldn’t help it.

****

“He’s a replicant,” Sam said, flatly, looking at the print-out from the VK machine.

“Impressive,” Michael said, with another half-bow. “Tell me, how many questions does it usually take?”

“I don’t get it. Why do this?”

Tyrell ignored him, and pressed on, looking at Dean, now. “How many questions, Mr Winchester?”

Dean shrugged, and began packing up the machine. Sam noticed that his brother’s hands were shaking slightly. “I dunno. Twenty, thirty, cross-referenced.” He did not look up.

“It took over a hundred for Castiel, didn’t it?” There was something exultant in Tyrell’s eyes, a cold fire that gleamed just below the surface, threatening to engulf them. Sam suppressed a shiver.

“He doesn’t _know_?” Dean asked, sounding disgusted. Sam looked at him sharply, but Dean remained focused on packing the equipment away.

“He’s beginning to suspect, I think,” Michael said, offhand. “May I keep a copy of this?” he asked, holding up the VK print-out. Dean nodded down at the case.

“What do you mean ‘suspect’? How can it _not know_ what it is?” Sam asked, and Dean finally did look up at that, but Sam could not decipher the expression on his face. Though he could probably make an educated guess.

“Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell. I am dedicated to continuing my father’s work. Castiel is an experiment, nothing more.”

“Nothing more?” Dean asked, closing the case with a rather vicious thud and glowering at Tyrell. “What do you mean?”

Michael didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, but continued with his explanation. “Maintaining control is key. To be of any use, they must be obedient. We began to recognize in them strange...obsessions. After all, they are emotionally inexperienced. They only have a few years in which to store up the experiences that you and I take for granted. If we give them the past, we create a cushion, or pillow, for their emotions. Consequently we can control them better.”

Sam inhaled sharply as he took the meaning behind Tyrell’s words. “Memories. You're talking about memories.”

“Exactly,” Michael said, smoothing his suit jacket down and holding up an arm for the owl, which was perched above their heads. Its wings nearly brushed Sam’s face as it came in for a landing. “Dr Eldon spoke to you at length about this, Sam. I’m surprised you didn’t put two and two together sooner.” He began to lead them back through the courtyard and towards the elevator. “Admittedly, there have been a few...glitches with Castiel, but that’s what experiments are for, aren’t they?”

“What do you mean, ‘glitches’?” Dean asked, stabbing the elevator button as though he wanted to push it through the wall.

“Some of the memories we implanted didn’t have the desired effect. Some made him more...biddable, and others made him...less so.” Tyrell frowned at some private thought, then continued. “The most troublesome memories, Dr Eldon was able to excise, though time will tell if it left any lasting damage to his core programming. For now, it appears to have been successful.”

Sam thought back on his discussion with Naomi Eldon. Dark-haired and blue-eyed, with an almost inhuman fervor behind her polite smile, he would bet good money that she was related in some way to Tyrell. The whole corporation seemed riddled with his family members, which would have been inexcusable nepotism, had they not also been intimidatingly brilliant. She had mentioned suggestibility, learned helplessness, neural pathways, and various other in-depth psychological concepts that she thought might be of use in the investigation. She had even mentioned an experiment she was running, which she called a ‘synthetic memory system’, and how it might be implanted or removed, as needed. She did not specify for what purpose. The way she’d said ‘removed’, with a slight pause and curl of the mouth, had caused Sam’s skin to crawl. He was not a squeamish man; no one who had seen him interrogate a suspect could accuse him of that--but he had not asked what such a removal had entailed.

“Gentlemen, good luck. I wish you an enjoyable hunt.”

“ _Enjoyable_?” Sam nearly spat the word out. “That’s not...how I would describe what we do.”

Michael tilted his head, considering. “No, perhaps not. Still. _Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd_ , yes? Anyway, please let me know if we can be of any other assistance.” The elevator doors closed and the car began its descent.

“I don’t like him,” Dean said, clutching the VK case to his chest.

“Tyrell? Same. He’s kind of…”

“Creepy? Unfeeling?”

“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it,” Sam said.

“He’s a dick. More replicant than replicant.”

“So, what, you wanted to run a test on him, too?” Sam asked, looking at Dean. To his surprise, his eyes were open and he stared straight ahead.

“No. I’m pretty sure that he, unfortunately, is all human.”

“Well, now what?”

“I’m going back to the station to debrief Gordon and Benny,” Dean said, shifting the case to one hand. “Do you want to go to Anna Milton’s apartment, see what you can find? We can meet back at my place this evening and go over what we’ve learned today.” He fished his wallet out from his coat pocket and withdrew a keycard, holding it out to Sam.

“We don’t even know if the address Milton gave was legit. And shouldn’t we _both_ go to the station?” Sam asked, narrowing his eyes. He slipped the keycard into his own pocket.

“One: I know, but it’s the best lead we’ve got. And two: Nah, just give me your notes from Eldon and I’ll pass them on.” The elevator door opened and they stepped out into the rain. “I also have to stop by my place and make the engine repair I didn’t get a chance to do yesterday. It shouldn’t take me more than a few hours, all in.”

“You’re gonna get some lunch, too, I bet.” Sam kept his voice carefully neutral and bit his lip to stop from laughing as he watched the blush creep up the back of Dean’s neck while he tried to hail a cab. Dean was convinced of his own guile and subtlety, and who knew? Perhaps for other people, he possessed such qualities. But Sam could read him like a book from just the furrow of his brow or the shifting of his weight. He had been Dean’s shadow for almost his whole life, since as long as he could remember, and it was this proximity that had given Sam his first insights in how to read people--and non-people. It was one of the reasons he had been so good at his job, one of the reasons he’d been such a proficient interrogator. And one of the reasons he’d eventually had enough.

“Maybe. A guy’s gotta eat, Sam.”

“Mm. No argument there, Dean.” He took a deep breath. “It’s just…”

“Just?”

“I know you like Lafitte. He seems like a nice-enough guy, but don’t forget he’s on Gordon’s payroll, and if he’s on Gordon’s payroll, he’s in Gordon’s pocket.”

“We’re on Gordon’s payroll, Sam.”

“I know, but…” He raked the hair out of his face and pulled his coat closed. “We got off the force for a reason, remember? And dealing with cops was one of the reasons.”

“Yeah, I know. I know they’re blood-suckers, Sam. Trust me.” Finally a cab pulled up, and Dean climbed awkwardly inside, pushing the heavy case across the seat. “But why not make the best of a bad situation? That’s always been my motto.” He closed the door and flashed a grin at Sam as the cab pulled away and upward.

Sam sighed loudly, to no effect, as there was no one to hear. He pulled his own collar up to his chin to keep out the insinuating November chill. He had read, in various places, that LA had once been a dry, sunny place all year round. Indeed, it had gone through periods of prolonged drought before the War. His father had taken a trip here as a very young boy, and though he’d only managed to salvage two photos, Sam had been enchanted by the golden-white sand and the tall, stately palm trees. He’d said there were seagulls everywhere--so many that people had to be told not to feed them, lest they swarmed. Looking at those photos were some of the few happy memories he had of his father, and they were often darkened at the edges by the moods John would be in after he was done telling his stories. He would become somber and withdrawn as soon as the photos were put away. Dean used to hover over their shoulders as John reminisced, never quite settling in for the tale. When it was finished, Dean would swiftly put Sam to bed, or send him down to the commissary to pick up something that Dean said they needed for dinner, with instructions that he look over every single package and find the one with the longest expiration date. Back then, he had never wondered why. It was just a game Dean played with him, a challenge from an older brother to his younger one.

Now, he knew why.

Sam climbed into a cab of his own and tried to rearrange his face into a less murderous expression. He wasn’t sure how well he succeeded, judging by the worried looks the driver occasionally sent him in the rear view mirror.

****

Dean heard someone enter his apartment as he stepped from the shower and instinctively reached for his gun, before remembering that he had given Sam a key. Nevertheless, he remained tensed until he could discern the familiar pattern of Sam’s tread, the chiding noises he made as he rummaged through Dean’s fridge, and the heavy way he sat down on the couch. Dean dried himself off and wrapped a towel around his waist, kicking the grease-stained clothes he’d worn to repair the engine into the corner.

“So get this,” Sam said, not bothering to turn around. “I went to Milton’s apartment. The address was legit.”

“Those better not be my leftover cold sesame noodles, Sam.”

Sam swallowed and lifted up another chopstick’s worth of something that was most _definitely_ Dean’s leftover cold sesame noodles. “You’ll never guess what I found when I had a look around.”

“She wasn’t there, huh?” Dean asked from his room, pulling on a clean set of clothes. He walked back into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge.

Sam made a noise that meant _obviously_ , and put down the empty carton. “It look like she’d left in a hurry and hadn’t been back in a few days, but the place was definitely lived in. By more than one person. Or, more than one replicant, I mean.”  
“How’d you know that?”

Sam pulled out a clear bag which held a small green book. “Have a look,” he said, handing it across.

Dean ran his hands over the cover. It was rough cloth pasted over board, cheap, the kind of thing that would fall apart if you so much as looked at it wrong. Flipping it open, he came across a photo of...a photo of two random people, a man and a woman, who were smiling. The background seemed reddish and smudged. The next page revealed another photo, this one of the dark-haired replicant named Hannah, who was looking at the picture-taker with a puzzled expression. The next showed the same woman, with her face pressed close to Anna Milton’s. The angle was slightly skewed, as though they were trying to take the picture themselves. All twenty pages were filled with photos, some of the replicants that they were currently hunting, and some of people ( _Or things? ARE they things?_ Dean wondered) that he did not recognize.

“What the hell is this?”

“It looks a family photo album. The last few were taken in that apartment, and there was definitely someone else there.”

“I know, but....why? Replicants don’t have families.”

“They don’t have scales, either, but look at this.” Sam produced another small bag, and inside was a small sliver of iridescence, the size of a child’s fingernail and just as fragile. “I found it in the bathtub.”

“What the hell would they be keeping in the bathtub? A fish?”

Sam considered. “Maybe. You still got your contact down at the Market?”

“Yeah, but he won’t be in until tomorrow morning. They open at five. We can have a look at those photos tonight though, if you want. I’ll call Benny and have him send over an Esper Machine.”

Sam gave him a strange look at that. “No, I’ve had enough for one day. You say your contact’s in at five? We’ll head down there first thing.”

Dean could think of nothing he wanted to do _less_ than head down to the Fish Market at five in the morning. Eating fish wasn’t illegal, since successful farms had been operating on the Coast for the last seven years or so, but the thought of eating a once-living thing still made bile rise in the back of his throat. He thought of their empty, staring eyes and their silvery scales and that smell, that disturbing briny tang, equal parts clean and rank. He swallowed the saliva that pooled in his mouth.

The Fish Market was, however, an extremely useful hub of information. It served the kinds of businesses and people that needed a front that was legal enough to go uncommented-on and repulsive enough that most people would not go there.

He nodded as he felt Sam’s concerned look land on his face. Sam was never disturbed by this kind of stuff. Sam had even developed a taste for _sushi_ , the real stuff, not the synthetic ‘grade-C crap’ that Dean liked to eat. “They were alive and now they’re not, Dean,” Sam had said when they were out to dinner once. “That’s how life goes. You know that. And the more demand there is, the more lucrative it is, and the more kinds of fish they’ll breed. We’re doing the fish population a favor, as long as we’re responsible with it.”

Sam was always so reasonable.

“Right, yeah. Fish market, five a.m. sharp. Sounds...sounds good.”

“Great. Listen, um, I’m meeting someone for a coffee. I’ll be back in a few hours. Alright if I let myself back in?”

“Meeting someone special, Sammy?” Dean asked, keen to change to the more reliable footing of teasing his brother.

“Hm? Just my old friend from school. You remember Brady?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“Well, he wants to hear about the rebuilding work we’re doing for the University. Says he might have one or two books that might interest us.”

“Sounds thrilling. You have fun, champ.” Dean gave Sam a solid thump on the shoulder and walked back into his bedroom.

This morning had rattled him in a way he couldn’t define, couldn’t pinpoint, and so couldn’t correct. Food hadn’t done it, booze hadn’t done it, none of his usual vices had done it. All he could think of were twin sets of blue eyes: one warmly intense, like the base of a flame, and one coldly so, unyielding as ice. Both were equally capable of inflicting damage. He wanted to forget both of them, for different reasons. And, for different reasons, he found he couldn’t.

 

God, he just wanted this hunt to be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but I have lifted some of the dialogue verbatim, or nearly verbatim, from _Blade Runner_ and _Do Androids Dearm..._. For example, Cas quotes Rachael's lines almost word-for-word when he first meets Sam and Dean. I have tried to use this dialogue as the bones, around which I can add the meat of the story. I hope I've succeeded.  
>  I also found that _Blade Runner_ was kind of inconsistent with its treatment of animals. There is a great, undefined War in both the book and the movie, which has wiped out much of human life and even more animal life. That's why things like the synthetic owl are so valuable, and real animals are even more valued. In the movie, though, Deckard eats sushi and goes to a fish market. I've tried to make it mesh a little better with the world of the book, where eating fish would be absolutely unthinkable to most people. 
> 
> Please let me know if you have any questions.


	3. Chapter 3

There was a thick layer of ice coating the far wall, the one that hid the cooling equipment. The powerful machines kept the Eye Works at a temperature that would freeze the water in human skin and lungs within minutes, but it was necessary to keep the synthetic eye tissue dormant until it was needed. Eyes were almost the last component in a replicant, implanted only a few days before the hormones were injected and the skin stem cells were introduced. Eyes were very difficult, extremely delicate: equal parts science, art and, Tyrell often joked, alchemy. There had been an issue with the taurine levels in the last batch of eyes that Charlie had made. It had set her work back by several frustrating days. Now, however, as she examined one (this time a tawny gold-brown, as all the ones in this batch were; Tyrell seemed to go through moods about which colors he preferred), everything seemed to be in perfect order.

Soon she could adhere the corneal limbus and the cornea, and then they would be ready for grafting. There was always that breathless moment, waiting to see if the graft took and the nerves unfurled to meet their counterparts, but she had the highest success rate of any genetic designer in the country.

Charlie regarded her work, and saw that it was good. She smiled.

She was aware that the door alarm beeped, though it was muffled by the high-density gear she wore as protection from the cold. So it came as a shock when she felt someone tap her heavily-padded shoulder. She almost dropped the eyeball, and, with a curse, set it back down next to its mate and closed the lid to the case. All of her technicians had gone home for the evening, and none of them had been schedule to be in the Eye Works today, anyway, so it was with some irritation that she turned and faced her intruder. “Ash, I swear to god…”

But her irritation soured, turned black in her stomach, as she laid eyes on who had disturbed her.

A man and a woman. Both, some distant part of Charlie’s brain noticed, attractive. The woman had shiny red hair and familiar large, dark eyes. She had the kind of fine-boned elegance that gave her the appearance of a gazelle. The man was taller, with blondish hair and a benevolent little smile on his face that caused his skin to wrinkle slightly at the corners of his eyes. But where the woman was a gazelle, he was a lion, and his smile was death. Both wore their street clothes, impervious to the brutal cold of the air around them. The man, she noticed, seemed to have wounds or burns on his face and neck.

She backed up a step, but she had nowhere to go. They were between her and the door, and the table was between her and the emergency exit. She could not run, anyway, not while she was hooked up in her deep-freeze suit.

The man smiled wider, then tilted his head to the side, a calculating gesture rather than a curious one. “Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rolled around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc,” he said.

“It’s ‘fiery the angels _rose’_ ,” she began, then remembered the reality of the situation and snapped her mouth shut. “No. You know what? You shouldn’t be here. This is...it’s illegal. On several levels. You need to leave.” She tried to muster the most authoritative voice she could, and hoped they wouldn’t notice how it shook.

“Hm. Alright, Charlie. Of course we’ll go. But first, we need to have a talk.”

There was a loud hissing noise. Charlie was sure she’d been stabbed as a jagged bolt of pain hit her right in the stomach. She looked down, and saw that he had pulled out one of the tubes that regulated the temperature of her suit. Next to him, the woman blinked and furrowed her brow, and then her face went smooth and impassive again.

“ _Fuck_! Put that...put that back in! I’m freezing. I’ll die!” Already she could feel the shards of ice beginning to form under the layers of her other clothes. She had maybe...four minutes before frostbite would begin to set in.

“Mmm, that would be a shame. Why don’t you answer my questions, and I’ll be happy to help you live. That seems fair.”

“W-what questions?” Charlie asked, around the chattering of her teeth.

The man pulled out another tube, and this time Charlie screamed, reaching out for it.

“Just the basics. Morphology, longevity, incept dates.”

Charlie staggered back against the table, upsetting several of the eye trays. “I...I don’t know….any of that...I just do eyes.” She gasped, and the air hurt to breathe. How long had it been? A minute? “I’m just a genetic designer. Eyes only. You’re...are you...Sixes? I did your eyes.”

“And ah, what things these eyes have seen! You should be proud of your work, Charlie.” He smiled again, and his arm crept out to pull at another hose.

But here his companion finally showed signs of life, stopping him with a hand on the elbow and a small shake of the head. “She can’t answer if she’s too cold to speak. And she’ll be dead in five minutes. Less, if you take out another hose.”

“I don’t...I don’t have answers to your questions.” Charlie said. Her skin had gone completely numb, and her shivering had lost some of its intensity. She knew this was a bad sign.

“Who does?” the woman asked.

It took a moment for her mouth to work. “Tyrell,” she finally managed. “He...he designs the brains. Your minds. They’re his.” Her vision was beginning to blur. She slumped down a little further.

“He’s not an easy person to see,” the man said, conversationally, looking into one of the hoses with an inquisitive expression on his face. “These are to regulate temperature, aren’t they? Human beings are so _fragile_.”

“Lucifer, hurry up.” The woman reached out and grabbed Charlie’s shoulders, holding her upright.

“It’s entirely out of my hands, dear Anna. Our friend Charlie here holds all the cards. You want to live, Miss Bradbury, you talk.”

“Tran. You need Kevin Tran.”

“Wonderful! You see? Humans just need appropriate motivation. Now, where do we find Mr Tran?”

Charlie told them. Or perhaps she imagined it, as her consciousness began to ebb away.

 

So this was what dying felt like.

It felt. Surprisingly….warm. Surprisingly like...pointed teeth gouging across the surface of her skin. Surprisingly like violent shivering, the kind that caused her stomach muscles to cramp.

Her eyes slid open, and all she saw was the concrete floor of the lab, several feet below her. She was no longer in the Eye Works. She turned her head a fraction and saw the denim jacket the woman, called Anna, wore. Suddenly she was being deposited on the ground, and Anna was removing the bulk of her deep-freeze suit. Her hands felt like burning brands as she pushed the layers of clothing up to examine Charlie’s skin.

“Damn it,” Anna was saying, though her voice echoed oddly in Charlie’s delirious state. “You almost killed her, Lucifer. She’s already got frostbite here. She’ll need medical attention, and I have no equipment.”

“I’m not entirely sure why you expect me to care about it. She’s a human being, Anna. She’d kill us as soon as look at us. They’re murderers and slavers, all of them.”

Anna said something else, but Charlie didn’t catch it. She finally gave up on consciousness altogether.

****

This was a mistake. Cas knew that it was a mistake the minute he got into the cab and made his way to Dean’s apartment. No, before that. He shouldn’t have looked up Dean’s address. He shouldn’t have even gone into Michael’s office in the first place. He shouldn’t have rifled through the papers on Michael’s desk. Even now, hours later, he was unsure what compelled him to do so. Curiosity, he supposed. It was an essential trait in a researcher; but he had frequently been brought to task for applying it outside of his work, and reminded again and again of the importance of maintaining a respectful lack of the same quality when it came to things outside of the R and D lab. And yet he could not seem to shut it off, not entirely, despite his best efforts. It was like a switch with a faulty wire, whirring to life out of nowhere.

And now he was paying the price for it, once again. He had seen the VK print out, he had seen the comments that Michael had written, neat black little marks that circled Castiel’s name like vultures. Why had Michael kept it? Why hadn’t he explained that the test was wrong? That the criteria were skewed? Why would he let Dean leave the office thinking that he was a replicant? It made no sense and it was a mistake.

It was a mistake that could potentially cost Cas his life, and he had the right to defend himself against it. That’s all there was to it.

A series of things he shouldn’t have done had now led him to do something dangerously stupid, but necessary. And why was that such a familiar feeling?

It had taken him half an hour to work up the courage to even cross the street after he saw Sam get into a car with a dark-haired woman. He spent another twenty minutes looking at the tarnished number plate on which the name ‘Winchester, D’ was set in hard, square letters. What was _wrong_ with him? Who was this person he had suddenly become? The indecisiveness of this morning weighed more heavily on him in the street, and he felt himself pulled in a thousand uncomfortable directions as he raised his hand to the buzzer, then lowered it, then raised it again.

Finally, with a growl of irritation, he pushed the button.

For a moment, nothing happened, then there came a crackle of static and Dean’s voice asking: “You forget your keycard, Sam? Your thumb print’s still probably on the system.”

“Um.”

“Who is this?” Dean’s voice was suddenly sharp, suspicious.

“Hello, Dean. This is...it’s Castiel. It’s Cas. From this morning.” He straightened his coat a little and wondered again why he had bothered putting his clothes from today back on. He already felt like he was slowly choking; the tie was an unnecessary addition. Still, it gave him a physical representation of the nameless feeling that howled through him. And also, these were the clothes that Dean had met him in. Cas didn’t think he had imagined that undefined _something_ between them, and perhaps seeing him this way would remind Dean of it, remind him of Cas’ humanity.

The line had gone silent, Cas realized, with another thread of panic adding itself to the growing tapestry. Should he ring again? Would Dean even answer this time? If Dean thought he was a replicant--which, evidently, he did--would he have any qualms about shooting him point-blank on the doorstep?

Cas reminded himself that he wasn’t here illegally. He wasn’t a fugitive. He was allowed to be here, replicant or not. No wait. He wasn’t a replicant _at all_. This was ridiculous. Dean wouldn’t shoot a human being in cold blood.

But for a moment Cas’ heart, his human heart, thudded to a stop, suspended in the space behind his ribs, inert as a lump of clay. Dean had opened the door, and Cas could not tell if the look on the face was one of invitation or of condemnation.

He still couldn’t tell as Dean stared at him, then around the door, both ways, as though checking that no one was watching. He couldn’t tell as Dean grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside, nor as he was being dragged to the elevator.

“Dean…”

“Not out here. Come inside.”

They did not speak for the duration of the ride. It was no more than a minute, but Cas felt himself hang in a kind of liminal space, unsure if he was being ushered to a sanctuary or an abattoir. He kept his hands calmly at his sides, resisted the urge to loosen his tie.

Dean hauled him into the foyer of his penthouse, shutting the door hastily behind them. “What are you doing here?” Dean asked, with his back still turned, walking into the open space of the living room. There were several empty beer bottles on the glass table, on which the notes from the Winchesters’ latest hunt were spread. A photo of one of the rogue replicants was half-visible in a folder, a woman with dark hair and blue eyes, very like his own. Cas wondered if a photo of him was somewhere in that pile.

“I wanted to see you,” Cas said, to Dean’s back. “So I waited. I want to help you.”

“ _Help_ me?” Dean asked, finally turning to face him, but not quite looking at him. “What with?”

“I...I don’t know why Michael told you what he did. Why he let you leave that building thinking what you...might think.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean leaned down and picked up a half-empty bottle of beer. “Talk to _him_ about it.”

“He wouldn’t see me.” And something in Cas’ voice must have caught Dean’s ear, because he finally looked at him in earnest, and again Cas felt himself pinned by that look, as he had been this morning. This time, though, there was something in it that Cas didn’t like. Was it pity? Or regret? Mistrust? Whatever it was, it irritated him, and he drew back a little.

“Do you want a drink?” Dean asked suddenly. “I’ve got something stronger in the kitchen, if you’d rather have that.” He held up another bottle of beer and tipped it towards him. Like a consolation prize.

Or a last meal.

Castiel swallowed audibly around the realization, and found it stuck in his throat. He pulled at his tie. “You think I’m a replicant. You really do. Don’t you?”

Dean lowered the bottle and set it back down on the table. He said nothing.

“Look,” Cas said, just managing to keep his voice steady. He reached into the the inner pocket of his coat and drew out several photographs. “Look at this. Here’s a picture of me with my parents.” He held it out towards Dean, but Dean had shoved his hands into his pockets.

“That’s not you. That’s Tyrell’s cousin.”

“ _Of course_ it’s Tyrell’s cousin, Dean. _I’m_ Tyrell’s cousin. Look!”

“No, Michael’s cousin is a man named James.”

“Dean, stop this.”

Dean closed his eyes and began speaking, as though reciting something from memory.“Okay, how about this? Remember when you were, what, eleven, twelve? And you were best friends with a boy named Steve?”

Something cold settled on Castiel’s chest, sank down into him, froze his marrow. “Dean..”

But Dean continued on. “And one day, you two were hiding behind the greenhouse, at school, because you wanted to skip math?”

“Dean, please.”

“And you just couldn’t help yourself. You just _had to_ kiss him. You’d wanted to do it for months. And finally...you did. And he kissed you back, and it was like the Fourth of July in your head. Remember? Until he panicked and punched you in the mouth? And you ran home crying, and said you’d fallen at PE. You ever tell _anybody_ that? Your parents? Michael? Anyone?”

Silently, Castiel put the photo back in his coat pocket. Something strange was happening to him. He felt as though he was unraveling, nerve-ending by nerve-ending, the synapses uncoupling in his brain, his bones dissolving in his blood, protein chains snapping like strands of pearls. He did not know it was possible for a heart to beat this hard, this loudly. It felt as though it were breaking. He’d always thought it was a metaphor. Surely something this violent would kill him.

So, an abattoir after all.

But impossibly, he still stood, still breathed, still had the power of speech, and he used it now, as best he could.

“How did you…How?”

“Because they’re _implants_ , Cas. All of them! That time you watched a spider get eaten by its own young, your trip to Yellowstone. Everything. They’re not your memories. They’re Jimmy’s memories! Michael’s cousin.” Dean ran his hands through his hair, tousling up the front. Something in his eyes looked wild, like a part of him had broken loose and was now teetering dangerously, unanchored, liable to crush anything it landed on. Or maybe Cas was just projecting. “Michael’s cousin, who married Amelia. Your ex-girlfriend, Amelia? Yeah, she lives Offworld now, with Jimmy and their daughter, Claire. They’ve been there for ten years.”

Dean finished off his beer in one long pull, then finally looked Cas in the eye.

“Cas? No, okay. No. I’m sorry...I didn’t mean it. It was just a bad joke, okay? Come on, have a drink with me. You’re not...you’re not a replicant, okay? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.”

But Cas did not hear the rest of it, for he was already out in the hall, already pulling the door closed behind him, already stepping into the elevator, ignoring the sound of Dean calling his name. He was already on the street, already walking, already running. But now, instead of flying, it made him feel like he was falling.

He was falling, and he’d never hit the ground.

****

“Dean?”

Dean jolted awake and reflexively reached for his gun. He realized it wasn’t within reach a half a second after he realized the voice belonged to Sam.

“What time is it?” Dean asked, wincing at the grating sound of his own voice. He sounded almost as bad as...well, someone else.

“Uh, time for you to be in bed.”

“No, I’m the one that puts _you_ to bed, remember?”

“Not for at least twenty years, Dean. Seriously, dude, _go to bed_.” Sam walked around the couch, pointedly looking at the beer bottles and the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table. “Did you forget we’re heading to the Market at five? I sincerely hope you had someone in here helping you drink all this.”

Dean sat up, and felt his vision follow, several blurry seconds later, after his body. His brain sloshed heavily in his skull. “No, he didn’t want a drink…” he began, before his mind caught up with his mouth and he ground to a halt.

But Sam was clearly less drunk than he was. Although, judging by the way he fumbled with his wallet as he put his keycard away, he was much drunker than someone who had only been out for a coffee should have been. Still, he looked at Dean steadily as he asked: “He? Who...did Benny swing by?”

Dean rested his elbows on his knees, and sank his head into his hands. He considered lying. He was normally very good at it, and Sam had unwittingly set him up with a decent cover story. Hell, he lied professionally. Which is why he opted not to, now. That, and the fact booze always tended to wrest the truth from his tongue sooner or later. _In vino veritas_ , he guessed.

“No, uh, it was Cas. You know, the guy from this morning. The...the replicant.”

“He was _here_?” Sam asked, loud enough that Dean winced. “Why?” he asked, more quietly. “Did he...threaten you?”

“Threaten me?” Dean blinked groggily at his brother. “ _No_ , Sam. If he threatened me, do you think he’d have walked out of here alive? No. He wanted...he didn’t believe he was a replicant. He came here to try and convince me of our mistake.”

“Oh,” was all Sam said, quietly.

“Don’t worry,” Dean said, with a bitter laugh, “I set him straight on that matter. And Christ do I hate myself for it.”

“I don’t understand. We have the test results; Benny got Tyrell to send over Castiel’s file. He _really_ didn’t know?”

Dean shook his head, and Sam was silent for a while, looking down at the keycard in his hand.

“What did he use to try and convince you?” he asked eventually.

“Family photos.” He thought of the wide-eyed look Cas had given him as he’d held them out, half frightened and half hopeful. Then he thought of the look on his face after Dean had performed a vivisection on his most personal memories. He almost missed what Sam was saying.

“Huh. Photos. Another replicant with photos.”

“Huh?”

“ _Photos_ , Dean. Like Anna’s photos. Maybe...maybe they need memories. To keep themselves from going crazy, or something.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Dean agreed, listlessly. Suddenly a glass of water was in front of him and he looked up to see Sam offering it to him with an expression that would brook no arguing. Dean pulled a face that was meant to be defiant, but he took the glass and downed the water in three long gulps, without pausing to breathe.

“Have another one of these before going to bed,” Sam said, shrugging off his coat and stepping out of his shoes. “And I think I’m better off going down to the Market myself in the morning. You’re going to be useless with the kind of hangover you’ll be dealing with. Again.”

“Spare me the lecture, Sam, I’m a big boy.”

Sam rolled his eyes, and began undressing for bed. He didn’t have any other clothes with him when he arrived, having been pulled straight from his office and into Gordon’s, so he threw his current ones directly into the washing machine. Dean still had one or two shirts of his lying around, from the two week period he had lived here before moving to Stanford. Sam put one of them on, now.

Back then, Dean had complained about the cramped living space and Sam’s mind-boggling array of hair products, which seemed to spread, fungus-like, throughout the entire penthouse. In reality, he had cherished those two weeks, and kept ‘forgetting’ to send Sam’s shirts to him once he’d settled into his new place. Dean had yet to visit him there. He knew it was stupid, but it felt a little less real if he never saw where Sam made his life now. Maybe part of him was still hoping that Sam would return to LA, return to the close, comfortable team that they had been for their whole lives.

Sam was looking at him, Dean realized. He’d said something and was waiting on some sort of answer.

“Sorry, what?”

“Dude, you are _out of it_ , and I don’t think that’s just down to the booze.” Sam sat down heavily next to him, wearing a pair of Dean’s pyjama pants, which flapped somewhat uselessly around his shins. But Dean’s desire to laugh at the sight was tempered by the serious, no _sympathetic_ , face Sam was making at him now. “Dean, you know replicants don’t have feelings.”

“Well, neither do hunters. And yet, here we are.”

Sam let out a loud exhale. Considering. “You really think that it...that _he…_ ”

“Yes, Sam, I really do.” Dean tipped his head back, let it fall against the back of the sofa. It seemed so heavy, it threatened to snap his neck. “If you’d seen how he looked at me when I told him the truth, you wouldn’t even question it. I don’t care what the damn test says. And I’m so fucking sick of this job I could scream.”

“Alright, Dean,” Sam said softly. “I get it. I do. And you know, I agree with you, really. Synthetic things have their own sort of lives, even if they’re paltry.”

“I’m not so sure they are paltry, Sam. Not always. And what’s so damn great about human beings anyway? I mean, look at my sorry excuse for a life. And Tyrell’s a piece of work. I’d sooner retire him than Cas.”

“Dean,” Sam said, the warning clear in his voice.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t _actually_ do it, Sam. I can’t even eat a _fish_. Murder’s not exactly my forte.” Well, perhaps that wasn’t entirely true.

Sam laughed a little at that. “True. Just…”

“Just what?”

“Just, you know, whatever it is you’re feeling...feel it.”

“Sam, I’m too drunk for this heart-to-heart crap.”

“No, listen. Feel it, but be smart about it. You can’t...you can’t afford to make mistakes in this city. Especially not people like us with things...with people like him.”

Dean narrowed his eyes at him. “How was your coffee, by the way?”

To anyone else, Sam would have appeared unruffled by the change in subject. Dean was not most people. “Oh, it was..okay. Good to catch up, you know?”

“Good, good.” Dean stretched. “Went out for a glass or two of wine afterwards, I’m guessing.”

Sam stood to get himself a glass of water. “Yeah. You know, lots to talk about.”

“I bet.”

“Listen, Dean, you’re not going to be up for a five am visit to the Fish Market.”

“Like hell. I’m up for anything. You know that.”

“Mmm. Right. I have a better idea. I hit the Market, you get down to the station and use the Esper Machine on those photographs I found. I’m sure Benny’ll be glad to give you a hand.”

“Sam…”

But Sam was pulling him bodily off of the couch and pushing him towards his own bedroom. “ _Goodnight, Dean_. I’ll meet you at the station as soon as I find out what exactly our scaly friend is.”

It irritated him to be told what to do by the person that he’d taught how to pee standing up, but Dean was at least grateful that Sam’s plan precluded him from having to deal with the Fish Market. With his head in its current state, he couldn’t guarantee his breakfast wouldn’t end up all over his shoes.

Sam always was reasonable.

****

His mother had warned him about moving to a building with no other inhabitants, especially on this side of town. He’d never mentioned it again, after the first time. But Kevin had fallen in love with the gloomy grandeur of the place, not to mention all the _space_ it offered. Those empty apartments could be turned into labs, into workshops, into anything he could dream up. The ones that faced east, anyway--they had at least a few hours of usable daylight. And eventually people would move back in, slowly but surely, and he wouldn’t be alone anymore.

In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Mrs Tran had gone missing a few days before Kevin’s 18th birthday. After a year of living in his childhood home, surrounded by nothing but ghosts, Kevin had had enough. He had sold the little house the following year, and used the money to buy the building in which he now lived. Well, property around here was certainly on the cheap side.

When he ran out of money, he caught one of the pigeons that roosted in the top floor, which he sold to a dealer in San Diego. There were closer dealers, of course, ones within the city limits, even; but he couldn’t risk people putting two and two together about where he’d managed to find a live, healthy pigeon. It was like sitting on a private goldmine, and there were plenty of unscrupulous people who’d do anything to get their hands on them. Plus, they seemed so happy in their little flock. He sometimes like to watch them as they flew about the place, or slept with their beaks buried under their wings, or preened each other. It didn’t seem fair to separate them all and have them sold to the highest bidder.

But the money meant that he could devote himself to his passions, namely physics, and the creation of synthetic animals. His mother had once said it was a divine gift, that he seemed made to do it. His crowning achievement was the owl that lived in the headquarters of the Tyrell Corporation. It had taken him a year of work and was as good as any of the beasts that made up his own menagerie--though his tastes tended more toward the fantastic. That owl, his mother might have said, would be the making of him. It had certainly put him on Michael Tyrell’s radar.

It was from Michael’s apartment that he now returned home, in a road-going car of uncertain vintage and color. Tyrell had once offered Kevin a job at the company, being so enamoured of his work. But Kevin preferred his current arrangement too much, and had declined in the end. Eventually, they had developed a strange sort of friendship. They had been playing the same game of chess for the last two years. Tonight they had each progressed one space.

He parked carefully, though there were virtually no other cars on the street. One of the benefits of his car’s chimeral ugliness was the fact that no one felt inclined to steal it, though the occasional part had gone missing from time to time. Apparently, a new factory had opened in Kansas. Perhaps one day he’d buy a new car.

He walked towards his door in a preoccupied mood, wondering about the next chess move Michael might make. A dark, crumpled shape on the threshold stopped him short.

Almost no one slept rough. There were so many empty buildings and flats that there was no need. But he had been told that this was what many people had done, pre-War, if they’d had no available shelter. Why would someone be doing it now, however?

“Um. Hello?” he asked, tentatively. He squatted down to try and get a look at the person, but the minute his hand made contact, they sat bolt upright and yelled in fright. He fell backwards but quickly scrambled to his feet. “Whoa, it’s okay! I’m not gonna hurt you. I swear.”

It was a woman, he realized, as her hand lowered from its defensive position over her face. He finally got a good look at her in the watery beam of the street lamp: dark hair and large, expressive blue eyes. She was dressed conservatively, in black and gray, but her clothes and her face were daubed with blood and her lip was split. She said nothing, but continued to look at him like a frightened animal.

“Are you alright?” Kevin asked, resisting the urge to reach out to her again.

“I...yes, I think so.” She didn’t sound certain, however.

“What happened?”

“I got lost. I’m new to town. I got...I got attacked. They took my bag. All my money.”

“That sucks,” he said, feeling his stomach clench. He looked around nervously, hearing his mother’s voice in his head, but the street was deserted. Whoever had done it was clearly long gone. “Can you stand?”

She looked at him for another moment, then reached out to him. He helped her up, and she stood with little apparent effort. Well, at least her injuries couldn’t be too severe, he reasoned.

“Thank you,” she said, with evident sincerity, though she still sounded shaken, and she looked skittish, one sudden move away from fleeing.

“Do you...want me to take you home? I have a car.”

“Oh.” She blinked and looked around nervously. “I...feel a bit faint. I might have hit my head. Is it alright if I come inside and get my breath back?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m on the eighth floor. I think the elevator still works, kind of. Come on.”

She smiled at last. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“I’m Kevin, by the way.”

“Hannah.”

They stood awkwardly side by side in the clanking, shuddering elevator. Kevin’s eyes darted to Hannah throughout the journey, but she looked straight ahead with a placid expression, completely at odds to the one she’d worn earlier.

Kevin shouldered open the door to his loft, wincing as the hinges complained. He studied Hannah’s face carefully as she stepped into the dappled light and watched his menagerie stir to life. As one, the glittering beasts turned their strange eyes towards them, flashing gold and silver and opalescent in the gloom.

“What...are...those?” she asked, pointing. She seemed almost like a child, then, though she had to be ten years older than he was.

“These?” Kevin asked, with a little grin. “These are my friends. I made them.”

“You made them?”

“Yep. My mom always said I needed to make more friends, so I did.” He looked at her, but the joke seemed to go completely over her head. He tried not to be disappointed.

He walked Hannah over to one of them: a unicorn, as tall at the shoulder as Kevin was, with a long slender neck and soft brown eyes framed by elaborate lashes. Its horn was a plait of silver bone, so fine that the light shone through, as through a seashell, and its nostrils flared pink-edged as he reached up to pat its head. It was uncannily lifelike, and he felt a swell of pride, looking at her.

“This one’s my baby. Took me almost a year to make, but it was worth it. Michael Tyrell nearly died of envy when he saw it.”

Something dark crossed for face for an instant at the name, but was gone as she spoke again. “I have never seen this animal in any biology books.”

“Well, unicorns were never _real_ ,” he said, squinting at her in confusion. “None of these guys were ever real.”

“But then...why make them at all?” Now it was her turn to give him a baffled look. “It was my understanding that people only want to buy animals that can pass as real ones. Why spend time on something no one will want to buy? Where is the value in...these things?”

His eyes widened at that. “Commercial value isn’t the only measure of something’s worth, Hannah.”

“What?”

“I mean, look at it. It’s _beautiful_. They’re beautiful,” he said, pointing to the unicorn, which had now folded its legs and sunk to the floor, appearing to nap. “They make me happy, and I’m glad to have them here, real or not. Valuable or not.”

She looked away from him then. “Yes, I see.” Her voice had gone soft, as though she was having trouble breathing, and he reached for her in alarm. She flinched, just barely, and he let her go.

“May I lie down for a little while?” she asked, and she was smiling again as she looked at him, wiping the blood from her lip. “I’m still feeling a little...unwell.”

“Sure, no problem.” He lead her away from the animals. A griffin was now cocking its head at her, stretching its wings up and back, which seemed to trouble her even more than the unicorn had. “I’ve got lots of space. There’s a spare bed in the back room, though I can’t say how comfortable it is.”

“Thank you.”

“You want me to call anyone for you?”

“Oh,” she said, frowning. “No. It’s late, and I don’t want to bother my friends right now.”

“Well, yeah, but won’t they be worried?”

“I doubt it. I’ll let them know where I am in the morning.”

“Oh...okay. Yeah. Sure.”

“Good night, Kevin.” She paused. “Goodnight...animals.”

“Night.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They never said that Hannibal Chew, the Eyeworks engineer, died. So. 
> 
> I can't deal with creepy animatronic dolls, and anyway, mythical beasts seem like they'd be more Kevin's style anyway.
> 
> Pris in the film dresses in a sort of Debbie Harry-esque cyberpunk way, which is amazing but highly sexualized, to highlight her place as a 'basic pleasure model' (ew). I thought Hannah would probably like to distance herself from anything that suggested it.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam had left while it was still dark outside. It would snow. He could smell it in the air, over the city smells.

He wrote a note for Dean, but knew it would probably be hours before he’d be up to read it. They’d only been hunting again for three days, and already Dean’s face had begun to fall back into the hard, haunted look it had shown during the years he’d worn a badge. It also hadn’t escaped Sam’s notice that Dean’s drinking had also fallen back to its previous levels. But he could hear Dean’s voice saying that _a coping mechanism was a coping mechanism, damn it, and he’d take what respite he could get._ It was hard to argue with that. Sam’s had always been healthier, at least on the surface: research, his health, pre-War law and literature. But they were all solitary pursuits, where Dean’s were ones of connection (no matter how fleeting). Sam might not have _minded_ the blood on his hands in exactly the same way that Dean did, but that didn’t mean he didn’t _feel_ it there, feel the deep-seated...uncleanliness like a hard kernel of darkness in the center of the soul, that made him unfit to sit at most people’s tables.

It was why he’d never managed to ask Jessica out, though he was positive that she was interested in him. She had a warm, open smile that put him at ease and a hint of dry, sharp wit that suggested something slightly tougher underneath. Mostly though, she seemed like a nice girl. Smart, kind, pretty. And not all the sort of person that should be subjected to Sam Winchester in a romantic sense. Dean, obviously, disagreed; but then, he would. Dean, for all his hard-boiled posturing, all his carnality and vices, had a thread of idealism running through him that Sam both envied and worried over.

He worried over it now, as he walked the early-morning streets, desperate to stretch his legs and clear his head. Dean would tell him to save the emotional crap and stop mother-henning him. Sam had learned that, where Dean was concerned, it was better to hint than to advise, to imply than to tell.

But really, it came down to one thing: did he want his brother to be happy or to be safe?

Well, both. Both was always preferable, but in the absence of safety, how happy could Dean really be?

 _Stay safe_ had always been John’s mantra to him, which was a bit rich, all things considered; but it had taken root on some level. _Keep your brother safe_ had been his to Dean, repeated until it sunk soul-deep, part of his essential make up. But Sam had paid attention then, too. Safe. Safe was always preferable. Happy didn’t enter into it.

On the other hand, Dean was inherently an unsafe person. He was a Winchester, and Winchesters cast cataclysmic shadows.

Which, again, is why Sam had never taken Jess up on her thinly-veiled attempts at asking him out.

Without realizing quite how he’d managed it, Sam found himself outside the Fish Market, now showing the first signs of life in the damp November morning. He shook his head. He’d have to be more alert while he was here in LA. Stanford, and life at the University, had started to make him complacent, and a complacent hunter was a dead hunter, sooner or later.

Sam stepped to the back of the shop whose address Dean had written down, and waited by the door. An extremely thin, harried-looking man eventually appeared at the sound of the approaching delivery truck, carrying an empty metal tray.

“Hey,” Sam said, stepping into his path slightly. Not enough to threaten, just enough to let the guy size him up.

“Uh, hey there,” he said, coming to an abrupt stop.

“You might know my brother. Winchester? LAPD?”

“Oh! Dean?” the guy said, sounding, to Sam’s surprise, delighted. “How the heck is he? I haven’t seen him around here in over a year! I was beginning to think he’d gone Offworld or something. I really should call him and see if he wants to meet up for a drink. Or maybe some coffee. I’m not much of a drinker. And if Dean’s your brother, you must be Sam! I’m Garth.”

“Uh...yeah. Hi, Garth,” Sam said, attempting to keep the bewilderment he was feeling from showing on his face. “Yeah, Dean’s my brother. And I’m...I’m Sam. Nice to meet you. Dean...uh. He couldn’t come talk to you this morning, but he says hi.”

“Oh, great! Tell him I say ‘hi’ back! What can I do for you, Sam?” He put down the tray and wiped his hands on his stained apron.

Sam cleared his throat, attempting to get back on even footing. He was used to people becoming cagey when they realized he was a cop, not turning into his new best friend. But maybe that’s why Garth was a good informant: no one saw it coming. Sam pulled out the scale in its little plastic bag and handed it to him.

“We found this during a search. I think this might be a fish scale.”

Garth took the bag and held it up to the weak morning light. “Hmm. Now, I know fish, and this my friend, is no fish scale. Come inside.”

The back of the shop smelled of pulpy, damp cardboard, intermingled with the crisp, coppery smell of blood on ice. Though Sam lacked Dean’s qualms about eating fish, he had to admit, coming face to face with a giant pile of their guts first thing in the morning was enough to make him reconsider ever eating one again. He swallowed down his discomfort and followed Garth back to his office. It was dingy, with cold white light and an ancient microscope, but it was also , bizarrely, covered with wrinkled posters featuring small animals. On one wall, a young cat clung to a branch, with the words _Hang in there, baby_ curling below its splayed toes. Sam stared at it, feeling uncomfortable. Well, he’d been feeling uncomfortable for the last fifteen minutes. This just added to it.

Garth mistook it for interest. “Oh, do you like them? They’re vintage. Pre-War! Cost a pretty penny, but just look at how cute they are.” He pointed to the cat poster in question. “Great advice,” he said enthusiastically. “Some days it’s the only thing that keeps me going.”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. Great advice.” Sam cleared his throat again. “So, about this scale…”

“Oh, right! Sorry.” Garth took the evidence bag out, and, with a meticulousness that Sam was not expecting, donned a pair of latex gloves and placed the scale onto a slide and under the microscope. “Hmm,” he said, squinting down into the eyepiece lens and adjusting the focus. “Not a fish, like I said. And not natural either. It’s synthetic. Very high quality. Top-notch stuff. Look. There’s a serial number. The last few numbers are the license, XB71.”

He moved over and let Sam peer through the lens. “Okay, so synthetic. Any idea what it is?”

“Definitely a snake of some kind. A big one. Maybe a python,” Garth said, placing the scale back in the evidence bag. He removed his gloves with a smile, then started a little as the bell rang, signaling the arrival of a customer. “Sorry, I gotta get that. Try Bela Talbot, in the First Quadrant. She’s the only person I can think of who’d make something this good.”

“Thanks, Garth.”

“No problem, Sam. Tell Dean not to be a stranger.” He clapped Sam soundly on the back and disappeared to the front. As he went, he added: “And that goes for you, too!”

“Yeah. Can...do,” Sam said, to the now-empty office.

Sam showed himself out and closed the door to the shop behind him. The First Quadrant bled unevenly into Chinatown proper, and then into smaller communities of Middle Eastern and North African extraction. It was a close-quartered tangle of narrow streets. They seemed to perpetually vibrate with hurried footfalls and the shrill voices of hawkers and a thousand individual lives being lived out at once, all on top of each other. So much _life_ , vibrant and overwhelming, polluted and beautiful.

Well, who was being the romantic one, now?

Bela Talbot’s shop was a strange spot of neat, precise calm, an oasis of clean white lines and beveled glass amidst the swirling chaos. Its starkness spoke not of poverty but of money, and quite a lot of it. But also, Sam noticed, a distinct lack of life. A wiry Siamese cat jumped from the table as he entered and almost brushed by his leg as he walked to the counter. Somehow, he doubted it was real. It was extremely pretty, though, he had to admit, and reached down to pet it.

“I’m sorry, but if it’s a cat you’re interested in, they are on backorder,” a pert voice said. Sam looked up from his crouch to see an equally pert face looking down at him. “I’ve got other things I’d be happy to let you see, though.” There was a flirtatious glint in her eye as she said it, but Sam sensed a predatory undercurrent to her smile. He straightened back up and kept his face neutral, all business.

“Bela Talbot?”

“The one and only. Accept no substitutes.”

“I’m Sam Winchester. LAPD. I have a few questions for you.”

“Oh,” she said, with a disappointed little moue. “Alright. If you must.”

“Artificial snake license XB71. That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. That’s a matter of public record.” She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him, challenge written plainly on her face. “Anything else?”

He carefully put the snake scale, in the evidence bag, on the counter, and watched her pick it up with a bored expression. It was a good act, but he saw the bright, shrewd look return for a moment as she looked at it.

“This is your work. Who’d you sell it to?”

She smiled at him and gave a little shrug, as though it were of little importance to her. “Not many people can afford my work. Very few, in fact.”

“How few?”

She slid the bag back to him with one finger, holding eye contact the whole time, unblinking. Sam knew that he had at least a hundred pounds of muscle on her, and he debated, briefly, reminding her of that fact. But she seemed to have an almost spookily good read on him and said, still staring: “I should tell you that I don’t respond well to threats. I _do_ , however, respond well to money.”

“You want a _bribe_?”

“I’d _like_ to be adequately compensated for my time.”

Sam sighed and pulled out his wallet. He’d withdrawn a fairly large sum the other night, as the second part of Gordon’s paycheck hit his account. He removed several crisp green-white bills and pushed them across to her, hoping she could see the utter disdain on his face as he did it.

She just smiled wider. “Normally I don’t get out of bed for less than three thousand…”

“Look, _friend_ …”

“ _But_ ,” she said, cutting him off mid-threat. She put the money into her pocket with a quick movement that clearly came from many years of practice, “I’m a firm believer in doing my civic duty. Try Crowley’s bar. Fourth Sector, Chinatown. He’s pretty much the only one that buys snakes from me.”

“Thank you,” Sam said, and his tone was waspish.

Bela refused to be stung. “My pleasure.” She winked at him as he left. “Give my best to your brother.”

****

Dean peered at the Esper machine. He ordered it to move and enhance. Then again, and again. He futilely wished for his own eyes to focus so readily. But a post-drunken haze seemed to have settled over them like a mist. He rubbed his hand across them irritably and looked more closely at the photograph on the screen.

Something about that last photo in Anna Milton’s album bothered him. He could clearly see the shape of a person sprawled across the bare mattress in the background, but he could not tell anything else about it. Was it one of their rogue replicants? Someone else entirely, someone they’d managed to dupe into hiding them?

The camera that Milton had used was clearly a cheap plastic box, a Lubitel or some kind of knockoff. Replicants didn’t have access to money, so she’d probably scavenged or traded for it in one of the Russian military outposts near Tannhauser. The photo quality was poor, with light leaking in at the edges. Still, the Esper that Benny had brought over (along with a carton of miso soup, because Dean had apparently sounded _that pathetic_ on the phone--and he hadn’t even bothered with the videolink) was cutting edge, and if anything could get them a read on who was with Milton, this could.

Finally, the grainy image was sharpened and enhanced enough that Dean could get a decent look at the face in the background, and he ordered the machine to print him a hard copy. It was just the profile, but it was enough. He picked up the file on the one called Balthazar and compared the known photograph. It was a match--same nose, same disheveled brown hair, same sharp chin.

Dean wondered if the replicants had split up, into pairs, perhaps, in order to better evade detection. Surely, though, they would be safer by going their separate ways entirely. Looking through the photographs again, he thought maybe the idea of going on the run on their own would be too lonely for them, too isolating. He knew it would be that way for him.

And that thought brought him up short, like someone had sunk a blade into him without his knowledge and suddenly _pulled_. He put the photo album down.

 _Replicants don’t have families_ , he reminded himself. _They don’t have feelings._

Well. They didn’t.

Did they?

The phone rang, and he flinched, dislodging the hook.

It was Sam. This time, he allowed the videolink to connect. “Sam. What did you find?”

“So get this, it’s not a fish, it’s a _snake_. A synthetic one.”

“A snake?”

“Yeah, super expensive, apparently. Top-of-the-line stuff.”

“How the hell would a replicant be able to afford that kind of thing?”

“Because it was bought by a guy named Crowley.”

Dean blinked, swallowed, cast about for something to say. He wasn’t fast enough.

“Dean, you okay? You look a little...off.”

“Yeah, I’m good. Golden. Just a little dehydrated. Um. Crowley, you were saying.”

“He owns a bar, apparently.”

“Yeah, I’ve...met him, in passing. Poncey English guy.”

“Helpful?”

“Hell, no. Douchebag. I’m talking _mountain of dicks_.”

“That doesn’t sound promising,” Sam said, and on the video, he raked his hair from his eyes and made a grim face. Dean could see him considering their next move. “Should we go down there, put the pressure on him?”

“No!” Dean said, and then, more calmly, when he saw Sam’s eyes widen: “No, I mean, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d respond well to two cops showing up and strong-arming him. I’ll go alone. Like I say, he’s...we’ve met. So maybe that’ll give me an in. I’ll call you if I need backup.”

“But you said he was…”

“Sammy, I got this. You’ve been putting in the grunt work while I’ve been busy pickling my liver. It’s time I did some of the heavy lifting here.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“ _And_ I’ve got an ID on that other figure in the last photo Anna Milton took.”

Here Sam perked up visibly on the other end of the link. “Oh? Who is it?”

“The one called Balthazar. Assassin-class model. Thank god, I thought he’d slipped under the radar for good.”

“So, what do you think that means?”

“Between your intel and mine, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of where he’ll be and what he’ll be doing. I’ll head down to Crowley’s when they open. You keep on standby. I’ll call you if I get into any hairy situations.”

“Alright,” Sam said, though he still sounded uncertain. “By the way, I had no idea you were such a popular guy.”

“What...do you mean?”

“I ran into a couple of your friends today.”

“I don’t have any friends. You know that, Sam.”

“Oh, well, I think Garth would be hurt if he heard you say that.”

Dean closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Ah, yeah. I forgot to warn you about Garth. He’s...a little unorthodox, but he’s good at what he does. And he’s…he’s...”

“Friendly,” Sam finished, grinning at him.

“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.”

“Well, he wants to take you out for a cup of coffee sometime.”

“That’s...that’s nice.”

“Oh, and Bela Talbot sends her best.” Sam was still smiling, though his eyes had gone careful and calculating.

“ _Bela_?”

“Yeah, she made the snake.”

“Crap. Of course she did. Of all the manufacturers, it had to be her.”

“I don’t know, Dean, she’s pretty cute.”

“Yeah, and pretty fucking ruthless. Sam, you know me, so trust that I would not give this advice lightly: do not hit that. Do not even _think_ about hitting that.”

Here Sam burst out laughing in earnest, throwing his head back. “Don’t worry Dean,” he said, gasping a little, “it barely even crossed my mind.”

“Oh, well, uh. Good. That’s good.”

Sam was still laughing when Dean hung up, without saying goodbye.

****

He had not been to this bar in at least a year, though it was the kind of place that almost guaranteed success: a cavalcade of attractive, omnivorous types with an eye toward the bottle and the bed. A perpetual veil of smoke and low light hid the most blatant indiscretions and added a sheen of romance to the more inconspicuous ones. And then, of course, there was the entertainment.

Dean wondered if Crowley would still remember him, and, if so, if that would help or hinder in his attempts at getting answers. He slid in through the door and brushed the snow from his shoulders. It stood out, bright white against the heavy blue haze of the room, then spattered to floor, where it mixed with the mud and ash that had trailed in from the streets.

Dean leaned against the bar and caught the barman’s eye. If there was any recognition there, Dean didn’t see it, and he didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

“I’m looking for Crowley. He around?”

The bartender’s eyebrows drew together as he considered Dean from across the gleaming counter. Dean shifted slightly from foot to foot and willed himself to be still, smoothing his coat and straightening his collar. Finally, the bartender called for Crowley. To Dean’s relief, he appeared from the back almost immediately. As he walked over, another bartender held a lighted match to someone’s cocktail--one of those brightly-colored, expensive ones that Dean despised--and a great mouth of flame roared by Crowley’s head, illuminating his face, and turning him, for moment, into a hellish creature rather than a man. But a man he was, and now he looked at Dean with a sly, upward quirk of the mouth.

“Evening, officer.”

“Crowley.”

“Come to frisk me?”

Dean rolled his eyes and resisted his usual habit of leaning against the bar. “I want to ask you a few questions.”

“And then you’ll frisk me.”

“Damn it, Crowley. Stop with the innuendo for two seconds. I’m serious.”

“Pity,” Crowley said, then held up his hands in mock-surrender. “Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Just tell me, you ever buy snakes off of that other limey, Bela Talbot? First Sector?”

Crowley gave a little shrug, reached under the bar for something. “ Why? You saying you want to handle my snake?” He shook his head at Dean’s murderous look and became serious. “On occasion. They don’t come cheap, you know.”

“So I hear.” Dean took the hard copy of the photo from the Esper machine out of his pocket. “You ever seen this guy?”

Here Crowley’s friendly demeanor turned brittle. He leaned away, drew himself back from Dean’s presence. “Can’t say I have. Look around you, Dean, this is a popular place. You expect me to recognize every pretty face that passes through here? You’re lucky I remember yours.”

Dean put the photo back into his coat. He leaned across the bar now, though it was not in invitation but in attack. “Yeah, sure, Crowley, sure. Hey, by the way, are your licenses all in order?

“Dean, you wound me. Clearly you’re...going through some things right now.” He began walking away, towards a petite redheaded woman at the other end of the bar. She was watching their conversation with one perfect brow raised. She looked dangerous. “Excuse me, I have family matters to attend to. Donny!” he called, over his shoulder, “This man’s thirsty. Give him a drink. On the house. See you around, Dean.”

Dean bit back his frustration and sullenly looked at the tumbler or burnt-honey liquid that appeared in front of him.

“Three fingers of hunter’s helper, on the rocks,” Donny said, looking at him expectantly. “The usual, right?”

Dean sighed. He didn’t want Crowley to think he could be bought off with a few drinks, but who was he to refuse free, well, anything? He nodded his thanks to Donny and downed the whiskey, feeling its firetrail spread across his throat and into his stomach. He left a few bills for a tip and turned away, leaning on the bar, letting it take his weight and feeling it dig into his back.

Crowley was a bust. But then, that was no surprise. Balthazar had almost certainly been here at some point, some point in the very recent past, in fact. If he hadn’t gotten wind that Dean was on his trail, then he might show up again soon. Maybe even tonight. Well, he might as well stick around, then, commit to a good old-fashioned stakeout. The thought made him uneasy, though he knew it was the most direct route to finding out what he wanted to know.

But there was something else that gnawed at him as he stood and watched the room. It was there, just under the surface irritation of having to slither his way through this particular gilded cesspit again. Something deeper and closer to the bone. It lodged itself in his blood and made it sluggish, turned it to ice, until he felt a profound cold radiating out from inside him, in spite of the infernal heat of the bar. Dean felt as though he had committed some unspeakable crime--and this in a city that would let you speak of almost any crime, as long as you phrased it right.

He found himself out on the snowy street once more, not entirely sure how it had happened. He gulped the frozen air into his body in an attempt to give him a physical counterpart to the frozen feeling threatening to splinter him from within. He made his way to the public phone on the corner, hesitated for a moment (and since when did he hesitate about anything?), and then placed a call.

It rang for several mournfully long seconds before the line hissed to life.

"Hello?" Cas sounded tired, as though he had not slept in days. He probably hadn't. The videolink connected, and Dean saw that Cas' face matched his voice. His eyes looked as though a hard campaign had been fought, and lost, behind them. There was a faint hint of surprise as Cas recognized Dean, but that died in an instant, a spark in an airless room. He was in his shirtsleeves again, as he had been the other day, and he looked in need of a shave. "Oh. Hello, officer."

Dean cringed inwardly at the title, but made himself speak lightly.

"You know, I've never had anyone run out on me before like that. Guess I'll have to work on being a more charming host. Why don't you come out and I'll give it another shot, see if I can't improve my technique."

Cas didn't say anything for a moment. Then he squinted uncomprehendingly into the video screen.

"What?" he asked, at last.

"I'm at a bar in the Fourth Sector right now. Crowley's. You know it? Come down here and have a drink with me. What do you say, Cas?" He gave what he hoped was his most charming smile, the one he only pulled out when he needed to get out of or into desperate situations. He wasn’t sure which this was.

Cas looked away from the screen then, and ran his hand across his jaw. Dean could almost hear the sandpaper scrape of it.

"I don't think so, Officer Winchester. That's...not my kind of place."

Dean exhaled sharply. To hell with the stakeout.

"We could go someplace else."

"I--thank you, you're...that's very tempting. But no."

The line dropped, with Cas' face dissolving into a single white spot of light, before vanishing.

"Damn it." Dean pulled his coat tighter around him. His disappointment was a living thing, and it surprised him, crawling up from somewhere hidden to steal his breath. He wondered how to drown it. He trudged back up the block and slipped into the bar again, determined that something was going to go his way tonight, even if it killed him.

For the first time in what felt like forever, he finally got his wish.

The majority of the crowd had moved towards the back. The metallic tang of sweat mixed with the bite of nicotine and synthetic meadows of perfume. Dean’s head swam. The music was mostly a bassline, a driving, insinuating thing that vibrated against Dean’s skin like an itch. Had he had a few more drinks in him, he would have enjoyed it. As it was, it only increased his feeling of vertigo. There were two women on stage, neither of whom was wearing very much at all, and who, he knew from experience, would end up wearing less in a few minutes. They were moving with a kind of stylized eroticism that he’d never quite managed to get a thrill from, no matter how drunk. Something about the eyes. All business, no pleasure, even when pleasure _was_ the business. In all matters of sex, Dean craved expressiveness above all things, even if it was subtle; genuineness, even if it came at the price of following awkwardness. There was neither of those things here. He had to admit, though, that they were both extremely pretty, with the kind of lithe, dark grace that appealed to him; like they were just as likely to bite his throat as kiss it.

His thoughts on that derailed suddenly as the third silhouette appeared on stage in a billow of white smoke. This one was undeniably masculine, with a louche ease to its movement that made his two companions seem almost robotic by comparison. Dean did not have time to focus on that, however, as the man held out his arms, cruciform, and an enormous python uncoiled itself from around his neck, nosing its way down his torso. The crowd howled its approval at that. Perhaps they thought it was real. The lights took on a reddish cast, like a film of blood, and Dean finally saw the man’s face in the glare.

It was him.

Dean slunk away from the stage, dipping his chin to keep his face in shadow, and made his way to the backstage area. The next act, a bevy of androgynous figures in gold body paint and silver masks, barely gave him a nod of acknowledgement as he passed.

The men’s dressing room was in disarray, a mess of glitter and feathers and brilliantly-colored stage makeup. It looked as though some sort of fabulous mythical beast had been sacrificed there. Half-drunk cups of coffee were growing cold and developing a thin scum on their surface, and a cigarette still smoldered in the overflowing ashtray.

Eventually he heard the muffled sound of applause and drunken shouting. Dean checked and rechecked his gun, the mother-of-pearl-handled pistol given to him by his father. It was a reliable gun; it shot straight and true. He ran his thumbnail over the inlay, grounding himself in its familiar pattern.

Eventually the door swung open, and Balthazar made his way into the room, coming up short with a surprised little “oh” when he saw Dean standing there.

“You’re keen,” he observed, regaining his composure immediately. “Normally my admirers wait at the back door.” Dean could see the thunderous beat of his pulse at the base of his neck, and the way his ribs expanded and contracted as he got his breath back. The python he had carried on stage slid from his shoulders and onto the dressing table, its forked tongue tasting the air in little bursts. Everything about him screamed _life_. Except, perhaps, the eyes. Behind the easy smile, Dean sensed sensed a blade or a gun, aimed in his direction. He was being weighed and measured, assessed for possible threat.

Dean made himself as far from a possible threat as he could. “Oh, I’m...I’m no admirer,” Dean said, stammering slightly and then deciding to just go with it. He gave a strangled little laugh. “I mean, I _am_ , of course but. I mean. I, uh...I’m actually from the Committee of Moral Abuses.”

“Committee of…”

“Moral Abuses,” Dean said, blinking rapidly, looking, he hoped, starry-eyed.

“And are you here to commit or prevent said abuses?” Balthazar stood at the sink, dragging a wet cloth across his face and body, removing the sweat and greasepaint that stained him. He eyed Dean in the mirror, then winked. He’d been taken in by the ruse and Dean breathed a little easier.

“I, uh, oh…” Dean said, clearing his throat. How could he get Balthazar out of this place and somewhere secluded? Retiring a replicant in a place full of bystanders was always a nightmare. “Prevent. I’m here to prevent them.”

“Shame.” He splashed water on his face, rubbed away the last of the khol.

“I wanted to ask you if you’d felt in any way...morally abused...to get this position.”

“No more than usual.”

“No more than---say, is that a real snake?”

Balthazar snorted. “Do you really think I’d work in a dump like this if I could afford a real one? And if I did feel, uh, _morally abused_ , what would I do about it?”

“You’d, you’d come see me and I’d make a case on your behalf.”

“Aren’t you a dedicated soul,” Balthazar said, archly. He’d finished his wash, stood there gemmed in the stark white light. “Here, be a lamb, help me dry off, would you?”

“Help you…”

“If it’s not morally abusive to you, yes.” He grinned.

Dean reached for the towel, still so in character that it took a moment for his brain to realize that Balthazar had ceased to smile and was now, in fact, simply baring his teeth. Dean reached for his gun, his trustworthy, familiar gun, just as the first punch landed.

It sent him reeling, knocked the air from his lungs. Another punch landed, with the force of a lightning bolt. He hit the rack of spangled clothing at his back and tumbled down into it. His head bounced off the concrete of the floor and he saw white starbursts. He fought to get his breath back, only to feel a crushing weight settle at the base of his throat, and realized he was being strangled. There was no way he could fight off a replicant of Balthazar’s strength and speed hand-to-hand. The gun had been his only hope. He should have called Sam, he thought balefully as his vision dimmed from white to black. Sam was only a few streets over. Sam was gonna be _so pissed_ at him for dying like this.

But suddenly the pressure stopped, and Dean drew in a ragged, gasping breath, trying to get his bearings, trying to see what had happened. He heard other voices in the background, through the ringing in his ears, and realized that the men from the other act were beginning to make their way to the dressing room. He looked up from his sprawl on the floor in time to see Balthazar’s white shirt-tails disappearing through the stage door and out onto the street.

Dean staggered to his feet. He shook his woozy head and gripped his gun.

He began to hunt.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooo this was a weird chapter to write, what with the cat posters and the stripping. And you have [BurningTea](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea) to thank/blame for making me imagine Balthazar as an exotic dancer. So. Yeah.  
> Poor Dean. Everyone will flirt with you, except the one person you really want to get in with. 
> 
> The next chapter is going to be pretty action-packed, in several senses of the word. It may split into a sixth chapter, depending pacing and length.  
> Hope you enjoyed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got much more violent than I had originally intended, just FYI.

The further into Chinatown he got, the more Castiel realized how out of his depth he was. This was a part of the city never ventured to and seldom thought about. His time, and his thoughts, belonged to his work, to his family’s--the company’s work. He was not overly social, though he knew that his colleagues admired his skill and acumen. Many sought him out for advice. He had developed friendships with a few: Ezekiel, with his unfailing good humor; Inias, who was always ready with a word of encouragement or consolation when a problem got the better of Castiel; even Naomi, whose aloofness occasionally gave way to something approaching affection. One or two of his coworkers had been attracted to him, though he had only realized this long after the fact and had never managed to act on the knowledge.

He had actually gone on a date not so long ago, with a woman named April, who worked for the company that supplied mutagens to the R and D lab. She’d had a sweet smile, and a subtle curve to her shoulder and hips on which his eyes had liked to linger. She’d flirted with him so blatantly that even _he_ had noticed. She asked him out to dinner on the third day of her weeklong trip, insisted on paying for the meal, took him back to her hotel.

It was nice, he’d thought, as he slowly undid the zipper of her dress and then helped her out of it, not to have to wonder where he stood for once.

He’d left the following morning, feeling buoyed by a confidence and cheer that he could not remember feeling for quite some time. Michael had even commented on it, good-naturedly, during his daily visit to the lab. But when Castiel had confessed (discreetly, he thought) his activities, Michael had gone strange. His smile froze and grew rigid, as though it had been nailed in place. April had not returned to the lab after that, nor had she called to say goodbye. Michael said she’d gone back to Seattle on urgent business, and refused to say any more. Cas had felt a sting of disappointment, sharpened by an indefinable sense of betrayal, but he didn’t speak of it. He had obediently soldiered on with his work, and endeavored to put it behind him.

He wondered, as he fought through the crowd, what became of April. Had Michael told her what Cas actually was, and she’d fled in horror? Or, worse, had she known all along and done it as some form of corporate espionage? It wasn’t impossible, despite the obvious legal risks. The idea made him feel ill.

The nuances of human emotion--his heart seized at the phrase--sometimes escaped him. He _felt_ , as surely as everyone did (everyone did, didn’t they?). But the thought of putting those feelings into the context of others--the idea that _others_ might have emotions _about him_ \--seemed presumptuous, somehow, as though he had no right to do so.

Now, he supposed, he knew why.

It had been evening all day, the skies drawn down heavily with snow. Cas could feel the flakes landing against his cheek, dampening his hair and eyelashes, but he wore his overcoat unbuttoned, as he always did, while those around him now clutched theirs tight against the chill. He’d always just assumed that he wasn’t bothered by the cold, that he ‘ran hot’, as the phrase went. Now, he realized, his ability to feel temperatures had been modified ( _almost certainly_ , the dry, detached researcher in him noted, _by the third day of incubation_ ). He wondered how _cold_ and _hot_ actually felt, how great a difference there was between the two.

He tried not to run as he pushed his way through the jostle and crush of the crowd. God, it was so _loud_ down here, so _cramped_. Everything felt slow. Confining. People teemed like fish, silvered by the streetlights and melted snow. Ground traffic grumbled past, and people darted in and out of it, seemingly heedless to the possibility of getting struck down. Occasionally a vendor would call out to him, or a hand would latch on to him as he passed, and he kept his own hand clutched tightly around the wallet in his pocket, the wallet he had so recently filled with money. The last thing he needed was for it to get stolen. He, legally, had no right to it anyway, so it wasn’t as though he’d be able to go to the police about it.

A few yards ahead of him was a laughing pack of women who tottered on improbably high heels like startled gazelles. Beyond that, across the street, he heard the ecstatic commotion of a group of monks, billowing towards him in their saffron robes, like flames against the slippery night.

Then, suddenly there were screams, and a hoarse shout, in a voice he recognized: “Get out of the way! Move! _Move!_ ” The crowd suddenly cleaved, dropped to the ground in a chaotic ripple of motion. Cas saw a man running, full-tilt down the center of the street, then veering off towards the shopping plaza. His white shirt stood out starkly, a wild flag in the dark. And suddenly he exploded. Not twenty feet from where Castiel now stood, there was the report of a gun, louder than even the screams of the crowd, and, in slow motion, the red hell-blossom of blood and shredded muscle bloomed from his between the man’s shoulders.

Impossibly, the man kept running, though Castiel could not imagine how. He crashed through the plate glass window of the first store, causing it to shatter into a constellation of broken glass. A second shot sounded, and again found home. Cas saw the man’s head snap back, and blood spouted from his mouth, down his his neck, out the sleeves of his ruined shirt. And still he ran. Another window disintegrated in his mad, doomed dash. He annihilated all before him like a comet coming down, leaving a trail of gore in his wake. He finally fell, rigid, among the wreckage of the shopping mall. The blank-eyed mannequins looked down on where he sprawled, like a penitent, face-down, and offered up their benedictions at fifty percent off. His blood soaked their feet.

Cas was frozen, watching it all. He was the only person standing on the whole street, except for the man currently at the end of the gun that had brought the fugitive down. Dean.

But Dean did not see him there. Dean did not appear to see anything at all. The gun in his hand slowly lowered, and Cas saw that Dean’s face had gone deathly pale, with the thousand-yard stare Cas had seen in videos of War veterans. Dean stood pierced by the beam of a single lamp and the gun in his hand smoked against the cold night air.

Cas took one step towards him.

Then he heard the wail of sirens descending. The dreamlike tension of the moment snapped like an over-taut wire. Dean might not have seen him, but that didn’t mean no one else would. He licked his lips, which had gone dry, and stepped into the shadow of a side alley.

****

Dean gave his name and badge number automatically, unthinking as a machine. He did not even see the cop that asked him, did not see their drawn weapons lower and disappear, did not see Benny approach. All he saw was the man he had just shot in the back. He’d been rolled over and now fixed his empty eyes at the ceiling, like a marble martyr in a museum. Dean saw the scarlet that spread like wings around his body, the blood already thickening and turning dark in the cold air. His wounds were still steaming slightly as his body cooled.

He did not even start as a hand slid against the small of his back, and followed its pressure unresistingly away from the scene, as the cleanup crews arrived. They were efficient, quick. Dean knew that by morning there would be no trace of the kill, and by tomorrow night the windows would be replaced, the clothes and televisions put to rights. Just a routine retirement. The Rep-Detect department had an ample budget for clean up. Though of course, they liked to avoid having to pay out in the first place. _Avoid performing retirements in public places, if at all possible_ some anonymous instructor’s voice droned in his head.

Well, yeah. Too late for that, he guessed.

“Hey, brother, you alright there?” The question came from far away. Dean blinked a few times as the face next to him came into focus, and connected it to the pressure of the hand that was still held against him.

“Benny?”

“Why don’t you have a seat. I’ll get you a drink.” Dean was being guided to a bench at the far end of the street, where the late-night revelry had picked up again, though tentatively, as people tried to see through the police barricade. “What’ll you have?”

“Bottle of Kingdom.”

“You should really have some water,” Benny said, frowning.

“I…”

“Jesus Christ, Dean,” someone else cut in. and Dean turned his head, which did not feel properly tethered to his body, to take in Gordon and Sam walking up to him. Sam’s mouth was downcast and his eyes were hard points of fury and concern in his face. He crossed over to Dean in two steps and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Hey, look at me,” Sam said. “No. No no, come on. Look at me.” Dean took a breath and brought his brother’s face into sharp relief. “Okay, good. You were supposed to call me if things went sideways.”

“No time,” Dean said, closing his eyes.

“You look almost as bad as that skinjob you left on the sidewalk,” Gordon said, conversationally. “But that was a hell of a kill, Dean.” He shook his head with clear appreciation, then looked up at Benny, who had not yet moved, but was watching the scene with a studiously blank face. “You could learn from this guy, Lafitte. He’s a goddamn one-man slaughterhouse. That’s what he is. Actually, both these boys are. Walking talking killing machines,” Gordon said, slapping Dean soundly on the back. It rocked him forward as it landed, and Dean didn’t have to look at Sam to see the hatred being leveled at Gordon right now.

“I’m going home,” Dean said. His voice still rasped from the throttling he’d received earlier.

Gordon shrugged. “Suit yourself. One down, four to go. Benny, come on, we’ve got cleanup crews to debrief.” They began to walk away, back to the scene of the kill.

Dean’s brain hadn’t quite gotten itself moving again, so the impact of Gordon’s comment didn’t hit him until Sam said: “Four? There’s only three left.”

Gordon shook his head, looking over his shoulder.

“Nah, boys, there’s four. The skinjob you VK’d over at Tyrell’s office disappeared. Cleared out the bank account it had access to and vanished. Didn’t even know it was a replicant, if you can believe that shit. Something about implants, Tyrell says. Sorry for the increase in workload, but you’ll get a nice bump in your paycheck for your troubles.” Gordon adjusted the collar of his coat against the insinuating wind. “Drink some for me, pal,” he added, as he walked away.

It dawned on Dean that both Benny and Sam had been watching his face very carefully as Gordon spoke, and he looked down quickly at his hands, where they were clenched almost convulsively in his lap.

“Where’d you park?” Sam asked, still watching him. “I’ll bring the car around and we’ll head home.”

“Two blocks over,” Dean said, swaying slightly as he stood. Sam pushed him back down, gently but firmly.

“Stay here,” he said, in a voice that would tolerate no argument. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Dean did as he was told, watching the street slowly fill up with life again. The cleanup crew, shrouded in their white protective gear, stood like a row of crooked teeth around the mouth of the van, where the remains disappeared. The van drove away. Dean heard a pressure washer start. The swarm of people, which had thinned during the commotion, began to move again, as people cautiously edged out. There was partying to be done, by god, and people were determined to do it.

He watched it all absently, let it eddy around him like a river. He was drowning. He did not much care.

Then his eye snagged on something. A face he recognized, which drew his gaze to it, almost against his will.

He stood and walked towards Cas, and it was like making for dry land after many days adrift. But Cas looked at him with a hard expression that he could not read, and turned on his heel, walking quickly away. He seemed to melt into the crowd.

Dean picked up his pace, searching with a growing sense of urgency. Suddenly everyone looked the same to him. Was that him? Dean darted off to a side-street, a darkened little alley between rows of garment-workers shops, now closed for the evening.

But he’d picked the wrong alley. There was nothing at the end of it but a rusty chainlink fence and an overflowing garbage bin. Dean let out a groan of frustration and turned around, only to be met with another familiar face, though not the one he had hoped to see. This one was pale-skinned and dark-eyed, the photo negative of who he’d been looking for.

“Anna.”

She advanced a step. “How old am I?” she asked. She did not blink, and her teeth glinted faintly, like fangs, in the dim light.

“I...I don’t remember.” Dean said, backing away. She took another slow step and he reached for his gun. But she was faster, she seemed almost to bend time to her will, and suddenly she was upon him, and the gun clattered to the ground before he’d had a chance to cock it. He threw a punch, put all his weight behind it. Her head turned on impact, but she made no other motion. He drew his arm back to take another swing, but she caught it, an inch from her face. That inhuman speed, that unholy grace, all turned on him now. Her hand was tiny compared to his, but she gripped his wrist with enough force to bruise it, and he knew that if she increased the pressure, she could rip the whole arm off at the shoulder.

“My birthday is April 10, 2017.” She pushed him back against the slimy wall hard enough that some of the bricks buckled under the force. She grabbed him by his throat. “How long do I live?” He felt his consciousness begin to leak away again, like water from a cracked glass.

“Four...years.”

“Longer than you,” she said, smacking him hard across the face. His mouth tasted of rust. “He was my _friend_ , you bastard. I felt...things.” Her brow furrowed. She seemed to struggle for words, for adequate descriptors. “We were...he was important to me.” Her eyes were crazed, but the lashes were matted and wet, and not from the snow. “Lucifer said you were all slavers and murderers. I didn’t believe him, until now.” Her hand tightened. “It’s painful, to live in fear, isn’t it? At least you won’t have to do it for as long as me.”

Dean could only make a noise. He did not know if he was trying to apologize or tell her to go fuck herself.

Another smack to the face. “Wake up,” she whispered in his ear, close enough that her lips brushed against skin. “Time to die.” She pulled back and began to hoist him to his feet, then higher still, until he was suspended above the ground.

Dean heard a gunshot. Anna’s face contorted with an unvoiced scream as she dropped him. He sank to the ground like a man cut down from the gallows, but she did not follow. Instead, Dean saw her turn on her attacker, clutching the sizzling wound in her shoulder as her drab green jacket soaked through with blood. It had to be Sam, and Dean could only watch as she launched herself at him. He tried to call out a warning, only to find that his voice didn’t work.

But it wasn’t Sam. Anna knocked the gun from Cas’ hand, as she had done to Dean, as Cas stood there, momentarily stunned by what he’d done. But she clearly was expecting to fall upon a normal man, not another of her own kind, and her punch had as little effect on Cas as Dean’s had had on her. She reeled back in shock, spat blood, and howled as she rushed him again. And here, something in Cas changed. From his vantage point on the ground, Dean saw Cas’ eyes grow cold and furious, and if he ever needed proof that Cas wasn’t human, he had it. Here was precision and economy of movement that no human being could hope to match. Cas sidestepped the blow easily and landed one of his own, holding her by her shoulder to ensure it made contact. Then, there was a strange cracking sound, and Anna crumpled to the ground, as though she’d been held up by strings, and they’d been cut.

Cas was holding something in his fist. Dean thought for one bleary moment that Cas was wearing some sort black, wrist-length glove. Then it hit him.

It was her _heart_. Fucking hell, Cas had ripped her heart directly from her body. Dean could see that it was still pulsing in his grip, as Cas looked down on it, as though he could not understand what it was or how it got there. Suddenly, awareness seemed to come to him and he dropped it with a horrified expression. It thudded wetly against the pavement, and Cas stared at it, then his own blood-soaked hand, in blank horror. He flexed his fingers, as though he had never seen them before and had only a vague idea of their use. When he looked at Dean, his eyes showed nothing but bewilderment.

****

Sam heard the gunshot as he’d inched along in Dean’s car. Instinctively, his eyes sought out Dean, where he’d left him at the end of the street. Not finding him, Sam killed the engine and slammed the door, running in the direction of the sound. It was hard to hear over the general din of the street, but Sam had good ears, honed by many years doing just this sort of thing. He heard the unmistakable sounds of a fight ahead of him and stalked towards it, with his own gun drawn.

What he saw stopped him cold. Dean was crawling towards someone, someone who appeared to have collapsed to hands and knees over another figure, which lay inert on the ground. There was too much blood. It was everywhere, and Sam couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. He looked at Dean, who did not even appear to see him, but had his gaze trained fiercely on the person he was moving towards. Sam hesitated, unsure where to aim his gun, but unwilling to let it drop.

“Dean!” Sam finally yelled, and Dean jolted as though an electric current had gone through him. He finally looked up at Sam, and the look on Dean’s face was enough to set him back on his heels. He raised his gun again, pointing it at the figure now staggering to its feet in front of him.

“Sam, don’t,” Dean said weakly, holding up a hand. “Don’t.”

Sam looked again and realized it was...it was the replicant, from Tyrell’s office.

 _Cas_ , he corrected himself, as he lowered his gun but did not holster it.

Cas had turned to him by then, and blinked at him dully a few times, not even seeming to register the presence of the gun. He squinted in obvious confusion before looking back at Dean and walking over to him to pull him to his feet. When their hands parted, Sam saw that Dean’s previously-clean one came away red and sticky. Dean wobbled slightly as he stood, bracing against Cas’ shoulder for support, but he straightened up after a moment.

Dean stepped away and Cas turned his body to follow him, almost blindly, like a flower following the sun.

Slightly left-of-center, between the ribs, or, more humanely, through one of the eyes. Either was a clean shot, now. If he was going to take it out, now was the time to do it. Now.

Sam put his gun away. Finally, he hazarded a look at the thing Cas had stepped over to get to his brother.

“Is that....”

“Anna Milton,” Dean said, and his voice was strangely hoarse, even more so than it had been a few minutes ago. Sam looked back up at him quickly, away from the pile of carrion that still wore a woman’s face. Dean stood bent, with his hands braced on his knees, head down, as though he were going to be sick. Sam, whose unassailable stomach and iron nerves had once been the talk of the force, didn’t blame him. Her eyes were still open, and, in the darkness her pale skin seemed almost to glow. The feral snarl he’d seen on her face in the video as she’d killed Sinclair was gone, and in its place was a vacant softness that looked almost peaceful. With her red hair pooling around her, she looked incongruously serene, almost like a painting of an angel. A fallen one, he amended, as he took in the rest of her, and the gaping hole that still leaked blood onto the pavement. He saw the faint white glint of bone, the pale yellow of adipose tissue and the angry red of torn muscle. And next to her, something small and dark, like the stone of some pulpy fruit torn out and thrown to the ground.

Oh god. “Is that her _heart_?” Sam asked, finally turning his eyes away.

Dean had walked over to him now, but Cas stayed where he was, with his back to them. Dean knelt and retrieved his gun from where it lay, a few feet away. “Yeah,” Dean said. He was still speaking quietly, roughly, and as he stood, Sam saw a ring of livid bruises in the unmistakable pattern of fingers.

Sam grabbed him by the arm, pulling him in close so that he could whisper straight into his ear without being heard. He hoped, anyway. He had no idea how good a replicant’s hearing might be. “Dean, what the hell happened? Where did _he_ come from?”

“She saw me retire Balthazar,” Dean said, just as quietly. “Came to settle the score. Cas...stopped her. Pretty definitively.”

Sam dropped his arm. “Dean, you know what Walker said…”

For the first time this evening, Dean’s eyes focused on Sam fully, without a trace of dizziness or distance. “ _No_ ,” was all he said, but Sam felt the full weight of Dean’s will behind the word, and something more dangerous, something that had a hint of uppercut-to-the-mouth in it.

“No, of course not,” Sam said, holding up his hands. “Not...after this. But Dean, you can’t be here with him…”

“I _can_ hear you, you know,” Cas said, staring at them. He seemed to have regained his composure and was now wiping his hands against the front of his coat. The phrase _Theatrum Pompeii_ flitted, for no apparent reason, through Sam’s mind. “I’m not actually human, in case you forgot.” Well that answered that. “Plus, I’m also standing less than five feet away from you.” The irritation in his voice was so evident, and he was looking at them so incredulously, that Sam almost couldn’t resist the urge to laugh.

“Sorry,” he said, instead, as the situation facing them reasserted itself. “Um. I just...don’t know what to do with--” he gestured to the carnage at his feet “this.”

“She was going to kill your brother,” Cas said, though now he looked regretful as he stared down at the destruction he had wrought. “I...didn’t know I’d be able to do that.” He looked down at his hands, almost as though he was afraid of them. There were dark lines of gore still streaking the palms, settling into the lines and under the fingernails. He wiped his hands again against his coat, but it did no good. “I wish I wasn’t able to do that.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean said, rubbing his throat, “I, for one, am glad that you can, and did.”

“Same here,” Sam said. He sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose to keep away the invading headache. “Thanks, Cas.” He looked between the two of them, then and realized there was only one course of action he could possibly take now.

“Listen,” he said, fishing Dean’s keys from his pocket. “I left your car parked on the street, and people are going to notice soon. You two go back to the apartment and lay low for a little while, until I get back.”

“What are you gonna do?” Dean asked, looking at him suspiciously from the corner of his eye.

“I’m going to try and make this look like a routine retirement,” Sam said, grimacing as he knelt down next to Anna’s body. He almost controlled the shudder that ran through him as he touched the heart where it lay on the ground. It had gone cold, and if he didn’t think about it too hard, he could almost pretend it was something else as he brushed the gravel from it. “I...don’t know if I’ll be totally successful, but I know the cleanup department doesn’t bother to look too closely at replicant remains.”

“And no autopsies,” Dean said, nodding thoughtfully. “Just straight into the incinerator.”

“Yeah, exactly. You two get out of here, now. I’ll see what I can do about this and then I’ll call it in. Tell Walker I sent you home with the shakes.” He looked meaningfully down at Dean’s hands, which had been clenched into fists and shoved into his pockets.

“Yeah, that’s...that sounds like a plan.”

“Dean, we should go,” Cas said, suddenly sounding anxious. The alley was off the main road, but Sam knew there were hundreds of people only a few yards away, and someone was bound to wander over sooner or later.

“He’s right,” Sam said, giving Dean a slight shove. “Get out of here. Go. I’ll call you when it’s done. We’ll figure out what to do then.”

Dean nodded, then peered around the mouth of the alley cautiously. He looked back at Sam, then, grabbed Cas’ hand and pulled them both forward, into the raw autumn night.

It had started snowing again. The flakes settled on Anna’s face and did not melt. Sam crouched next to her and gently closed her eyes. Then he rolled up his sleeves and began putting her back together again.

Dimly, he wondered if Jessica might still want to get dinner with him some time, and if she’d still feel the same if she saw him now, red to the elbows and white in the knuckle.

Probably not. But maybe he’d ask.

 

****

Dean’s apartment was a blessed pool of calm after the chaos of the last few hours, and Cas dove gratefully into it, headfirst, heedless. A glass of something honey-colored appeared in front of him, though it made him cough in a way honey never would. He downed it in one long gulp, then put the glass down and looked around for the bottle, nearly grabbing it out of Dean’s hands.

He had never been drunk before. He wondered how much it would take. Probably more than Dean had available at the present moment, knowing how quickly a Nexus 6 could metabolize intoxicants.

Still. That didn’t mean he couldn’t try.

“Woah, whoa, slow down there,” Dean said, and his voice was warmer than even the alcohol now unfurling in Cas’ veins. Dean held his wrist, where he gripped the neck of the bottle, and Cas realized that he was trembling.

“Shakes, huh?” Dean said, seeing it. He began gently prising Cas’ fingers away from the neck of the bottle and kept ahold of his hand, pressing his thumb into Cas’ palm in firm strokes, attempting to soothe the tremor.

Cas watched this with a sort of distant fascination, trying to reconcile the gentleness of this particular moment with the unrestrained violence he had been part of only an hour before. “What?” he asked, only vaguely aware that Dean had spoken. Dean eventually dropped the hand he was holding, and Cas nearly made an undignified noise of disappointment. But then Dean reached for the other one and began working it. The line of pressure that stretched from the base of his knuckle to the sensitive skin of his wrist seemed to have strange, hypnotic qualities. Cas felt his shivering lessen slightly.

“I get them, too,” Dean said, continuing his work, not looking up. “I mean, bad. Always have. But it’s part of the business.”

Cas realized then that Dean was administering...whatever this was...for both their sakes. Dean seemed to be steadied by having someone else to focus on, someone to take care of, pouring his exhaustion and his shock into the long slow slide of his thumb against the flesh of Cas’ palm. Cas leaned into it. He couldn’t help it, and didn’t want to help it. “I’m not in the business, Dean,” he said quietly, because his voice suddenly seemed to stop functioning properly. “I am the business.”

Dean gripped his hand, then, almost as though he’d received a blow, and finally met his eye. When had they drifted so close together? Cas didn’t remember taking a single step forward. Perhaps the space between them had carved itself away of its own volition. That seemed likely, somehow.

He felt the unbearable urge to lean forward and close the gap, and for the second time, standing in this living room, looking at this face, he felt his heart beat with such force he wondered how it didn’t knock him down. He swallowed, saw Dean track the motion of it. Dean still held his hand, his left hand, red and sinister, the hand that had saved his life.

He could…

He looked away, slightly. “I changed my mind.”

And now it was Dean who seemed to have trouble deciphering English. “What?” There was a flash of something there, something remarkably like _hurt_ and _disappointment_ , clear enough that even Cas could recognize it without a second thought. The distance between them seemed to weld itself together again, and Cas realized his mistake.

“I mean, I changed my mind about meeting you for a drink,” he said quickly. “I was going to meet you. That’s why I was there. Didn’t you wonder?”

“No. I didn’t have a chance,” Dean said, exhaling sharply. “You were?”

“Yes, I...I wanted to say goodbye to you.”

“Walker was right, you’re skipping town.”

Cas didn’t know why he was so shocked that the police would already know he’d fled. Michael must have reported him the moment the money left the account. Suddenly Sam’s whispered comment made sense. “You’re under orders to kill me. Aren’t you?”

Dean let go of his hand at last and busied himself by pouring another drink. “I won’t.”

“I was going to go north. Leave the country. If I go--if I run, would you hunt me down?”

Dean looked at him over the rim of his glass, then lowered it, untouched. He looked almost offended. “No. Fuck that. I wouldn’t. Never.”

“Sam?"

Dean drank the whiskey more slowly than usual. Buying time, Cas thought. “No,” he said at last, and he sounded certain. “Sam wouldn’t hunt you either. But someone would.” He put the glass down. “I’m sorry. I wish...I wish I’d never told you.”

“I’m glad to know,” Cas said, then shook his head. “Or rather, I prefer to know. I’m glad I have my own life now, even if it’s not worth anything.”

“Not _worth_ anything?”

“Dean, things like me are…” he began, then looked away from Dean’s horrified face. “Every worm that crawls on this earth is worth more than I am, worth more than every member of my kind put together. You know that. No use pretending otherwise.” He moved to pick his glass up from the table again, but Dean had grabbed him abruptly by the shoulders before he got the chance. Dean’s face was set into hard lines, as though it had been cut from stone, but his eyes were fever-bright. This close up, Cas could see the small flecks of gold in the green.

“It may true, but it isn’t the _truth_ ,” Dean said fiercely. “So you’re not a human being, so fucking what? You’re still more of a person than half the actual humans I’ve met.”

“Dean…”

But Dean killed the rest of his protest, dragging him in and kissing him. He did it expansively, thoroughly, with the kind of abandon that could only come from years of practice meeting a lingering wave of adrenaline. It was, Cas thought dreamily, the way one might kiss on their last night on earth. He brought one hand to rest at the shallow curve at Dean’s back, and the other up to the angle of his jaw. But when he pulled away, he saw the traces of the night’s activities there, glaring angry red against winter-pale skin.

“Let me...I need a shower, first.” Cas said stepping back slightly, and feeling a mix of disappointment and relief as Dean instantly released him. “I’m dirty.”

Dean nodded somewhere in the vicinity of Cas’ knees. “Yeah, this city will do that to you.” Dean turned away, and Cas reached out to him, as though his hands had a mind of their own. Dean stopped the moment he felt the touch on his arm and stood, very still, while Cas pressed up against his back for just a moment and kissed the back of his neck.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the movie, Rachael shoots Leon and is (understandably) shaken by what she's done, but there is nothing to suggest that she's anything than a normal human woman reacting the way any normal human would. And that's the point, I get it. But it does make the following sexual encounter with Deckard...hugely problematic. And, to my mind, kind of unnatural. So, I wanted to ensure that Cas was thoroughly not-human in his actions even as he was thoroughly human in his emotions. That way, anything that happens between him and Dean, there's no question that Cas would be able to get out of the situation if he wanted to.  
> I also had Cas literally rip Anna's heart out, because that is what he metaphorically did to her in the show. Is this graphically violent? My metric for these things seems to be skewed. Perhaps I'm a replicant. 
> 
> And yes, this chapter had to be split. I can't seem to shut up! Hope you enjoyed, or at least engaged.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting. I was in a foreign country doing things which are illegal in my country of residence but legal there. Also, sex scenes are hard to write.

In his sleep, Dean became aware of something silently looming over him. He woke with a jolt. His hand shot out and grabbed on instinct, ready to twist and hear the snap of breaking bones. A hiss of pain and surprise hit his ears, and he he suddenly remembered that Sam was staying with him. He loosened his grip, but he did not let go as he looked up through the grainy dark, trying to see more clearly. But neither the wrist nor the wildly thudding pulse under its warm skin belonged to Sam.

The world reluctantly came into focus, ashy gray clearing away to reveal startling blue.

“Cas?” Dean struggled to sit up. He let go of Cas’ wrist as though it had shocked him. “Sorry, man.”

“It’s alright,” Cas said, rubbing the chafed skin and trying to disguise his grimace. He dropped the blanket he was holding onto Dean’s feet. “You were shivering. I’m sorry to have scared you.”

“Sorry, yeah, just a bit...a bit jumpy,” Dean said, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands until he saw starbursts behind his eyelids. The inside of his skull felt bruised. Dean blinked again and Cas’ intent, concerned face swam fully into view at last. As well as the rest of him. His damp hair clung to his head, curling slightly at the nape of his neck, and hot water had made a garland of angry roses bloom along his chest. Dean only realized he was staring when he saw Cas’ steady gaze falter and drop somewhere towards the floorboards.

“That’s understandable,” Cas said quietly, still to the floorboards, as though he was trying to memorize the knots in them. “You’ve had a traumatic evening.” He cleared his throat. “Um. May I have my clothes, please?”

Dean had a long moment of forgetting how English worked. Though whether this was from the concussion he suspected he had, or the fact that a drop of water had slowly trickled its way down from the vaulted swell of Cas’ ribcage to intriguing shadow of his iliac furrow, where it disappeared into the white column of the towel, Dean was unsure. Maybe both.

Both, he decided, and watched another water droplet slide from the dark whorl of hair behind Cas’ ear and settle, pearl-like, in the hollow of his throat.

“Dean?”

“Uh, yeah. They’re…” Dean shook his head, chastising himself for being a creepy idiot, and then remembering he was in the middle of a sentence. “They’re in the wash, sorry.” He gestured with his head towards the washing machine, which quietly grumbled away in the background. “I put peroxide on them, but I don’t know if all the blood will come off, though.”

“Oh,” Cas said, with his attention now settled in the vicinity of the rug. Dean found himself getting strangely jealous of his apartment floor. “Thank you, that was very kind of you. But I, um…”

“Let me get you something to wear,” Dean interrupted, jumping up from the couch so suddenly that he nearly fell over. For the second time that night he felt two strong hands grip him by the shoulders and hold him upright. He took a deep breath and felt the blood that had pooled in his feet slowly make its way back to the rest of his body. Then he looked up. His traitorous blood moved southward again.

After a moment Dean realized that he should probably look elsewhere, though he couldn’t quite work out why, exactly. Especially not when Cas was staring at him, from four inches away, as though Dean had developed his own center of gravity. It was then Dean remembered that he was standing in nothing but boxer shorts, and he knew that was being watched as intensely as he was watching. He’d managed to wash up pretty well in the kitchen sink, scrubbing his skin with near-boiling water in an attempt to get clean. Now he understood there was probably only one thing that was going to make him feel remotely clean again.

“I should leave,” Cas said, unexpectedly, and broke eye contact again as he let go of Dean’s shoulders. Dean felt the warmth of their presence bleed away into the cool air. He noticed, however, that Cas made no effort to move.

“What? Why?” Dean asked in alarm, grabbing Cas again, as though he might disappear on the spot. “You’ve got a price on your head, remember? You’re safer here than anywhere in this city.”

“If anyone finds me here with you, you’ll be in serious trouble.”

“So?” Dean stepped closer, breathed the word directly into the hot, downy curve of Cas’ ear and felt immensely gratified to feel his skin prickle with goosebumps in response. He ran his hands up Cas’ forearms, gripping him by the elbows; but he kept his touch light, easy to get out of. (Dean knew, of course, that Cas was strong enough to escape any hold he might try with little effort, but he still hoped to thoroughly test this theory some day.)

“Dean, what you...what I think you’re aiming for, it’s illegal.”

“Most enjoyable things are.” He stepped closer still, until they were chest-to-chest, now holding Cas by the hips, but made no move to lean in for a kiss this time. “And I do illegal shit all the time, Cas. I’m actually a very bad man.”

“That’s not true,” Cas said, pulling back slightly. His face was too earnest, too trusting, and Dean couldn’t stand it; he felt it land on him like a punch.

“I am, though,” Dean said, into the two inches of space between them. “You probably shouldn’t kiss me.”

Cas blinked, that rapid one-two flicker that denoted surprise. “Are you using reverse psychology on me?”

Dean laughed. “Is it working?”

“Sadly, yes.” And there it was, the slight quirk of a quarter-smile, the forthright look that Dean remembered from their first meeting, the look that had riveted him then and did so again, now.

“Good,” Dean said, and kissed him softly. For a long, lovely moment Cas kissed him back, but then Dean felt him tense up, as though he’d been shot.

“No?” Dean peered into his face, and felt as though he was scrying for answers at the bottom of a deep pool.

“Yes,” Cas said, but his voice had gone even rougher than usual, as though the word were dragged out from somewhere dark inside of him, and not by choice. “But Dean, it’s just...I can’t rely on…” He frowned, unable to form the rest of his sentence, as though he could no longer master his own thoughts.

“What?” Dean asked, unsettled. He moved back a step.

“The things I thought I felt,” Cas said, frowning. “I didn’t actually feel them. I can’t rely on…” But here he faltered again, shaking his head and looking at Dean with a mixture of helplessness and confusion. Dean felt the low flame of protectiveness that had kindled itself on that very first day crackle up through every nerve ending at once, suddenly illuminating everything in him. He burned with it. He opened his mouth, expecting flame, but instead words tumbled out.

“Yeah, okay. Listen. Maybe you’re right about what you thought you felt before. But--look at me, Cas--what you’re feeling now belongs to _you_ and no one else. Not that douchebag Michael, not the company, not Naomi. From now on, your thoughts and your feelings are yours. No one can take them from you. Okay?”

And Dean felt stupid, the words felt clumsy and wooden on his tongue, because talking about these kinds of things was not a skill he had ever developed, or cared to develop. Especially not when he was pressed up against someone he desperately wanted to fall into bed with. But this seemed important. He had to get Cas to understand, to trust what he was saying, to trust _himself_. Even, Dean admitted, if that meant he would be falling into bed alone. So he took a deep breath and continued, remembering something Sam had said to him not so long ago: “So whatever you want, whatever it is you’re feeling, then just...feel it. Okay? It’s...it’s okay, you know? Whatever it is, or, um, or isn’t... it’s yours, and it’s okay.”

Dean said all of this to Cas’ shoulder. Eventually he stumbled to a halt, feeling his heart hammer in his chest, and looked up to see Cas watching him with confusion creasing his brow. His eyes bored into Dean’s with an intensity that made Dean’s stomach knot. Damn it, he was so _bad_ at this, and now he’d tried to offer some kind of grand emotional enlightenment, holding it out like a child might hold out a toy he’d made, only to have it fall apart in his hands. He felt embarrassment scald his cheeks and scorch the tips of his ears as he sought something to say, some quip or one-liner to soothe the ache of the moment.

But he didn’t get the chance. Cas grabbed him, pulled him in with hands like iron, and kissed him. Any earlier uncertainty seemed to wash away. Dean felt the full force of it, like a great wave breaking over him. He was laid out bare under the sheer, raw _want_ in it, gasping as Cas pressed praises into his mouth, against his tongue. Cas wound his arms around Dean’s shoulders and waist, as though he was afraid Dean might suddenly get away, as though he’d want anything other than more.

Dean managed to put a sliver of space between them, resisting the urge to seek friction. Barely. “So,” he asked, panting, “What are you...feeling...right now?”

Cas’ eyebrow rose a fraction, his expression almost dangerously flat, as though he had flipped a switch. Then he leaned in. “Don’t ask stupid questions,” he whispered, and Dean could feel him smiling. The smile sharpened as Cas bit down lightly on the tender, pale skin beneath the hinge of Dean’s jaw, eliciting another gasp.

“Okay, good...that’s, that’s good. But I need to hear you say it.”

“Say what?” Cas asked against the line of Dean’s throat, scattering kisses there as though it were the only thing he found worth doing. Dean’s hand had found its way up into the damp tangle of his hair, and now that hand pulled, earning him a groan and a small, involuntary jerk of the hips. And there was the friction Dean had so scrupulously avoided for the last few minutes, the hard weight of it hitting him low and surging upwards.

“Say you want me.”

Cas gave him a look that was almost pained, and not from the persistent tug on his hair (Dean was always a gentleman until asked; he kept it soft). “But I do want you,” he said. The color had risen high in his cheeks, and his eyes, under their lashes, were bright and artless.

“Say it again.”

“I want you.”

“Good,” Dean said, and gave himself over. Half-falling, half-pulling, he lead them through the living room and towards--at last!--the bedroom. He shed his boxer shorts on the way, not even caring where they landed. He closed the door behind them decisively and lead Cas to the bed, the only horizontal surface in the apartment large enough to comfortably support two grown men for the amount of time he had in mind. Time which, he was dimly aware, they might not have, depending on when Sam finished his work. When would he return? What if Benny or, god forbid, Walker, showed up, needing to take more statements? The thought sent a chill through him, a pinprick of black ice amongst the rose-colored heat in his blood.

“Doesn’t matter,” he murmured, only belatedly realizing that he’d said the words out loud, into the rain-smelling warmth of Cas’ skin.

“What?” The word was slow, hazy at the edges, but he raised himself up on his elbows and looked at Dean. What did he see, Dean wondered, with that preternaturally precise, patented vision of his?

“Nothing, nothing,” said Dean, soothing with his voice and hands. “We have time. We have plenty of time.” And as he said it, he felt time bend itself to his words, domed like the soft water bubble of a paperweight or the bead of murano glass he remembered his mother wearing around her neck. They had time. He pushed Cas down into the tranquil white pool of sheets.

“Alright.” Cas laid back with a sigh, as though he’d been carrying a heavy weight and had at last set it down.

Dean settled over him, admiring for a moment the way their skin met, pale and freckled against tan, the way Cas’ muscles felt, lean and spare and coursing with life under his hands. He marveled at the way he met each caress, eagerly and with soft, pleased sounds, as though it was the first time he had felt anything quite so good. Maybe, Dean thought, in a daze, it was. Maybe it was.

“Tell me what you want.” He unknotted the towel, which had thwarted him until now, and peeled it away with one hand, bracing himself with the other, looking down.

Cas looked up at him, and Dean knew, knew it in his bones, that he was over, and that he was glad of it.

“You.”

The word was ordinary, but the sentiment vanishingly rare: a tearing of veils and a firefall of embers from the mouth of some forgotten god. Dean answered the only way he knew how, with his whole body, as though he had been fashioned for precisely this, his mouth made to kiss and consume, turned and tempered for just this moment, this body, this person, right now. He slotted their bodies together as tightly as he could, baring his teeth a little at the contact and pushing down slightly, unable to help himself.

“You have me,” he promised, lifting himself back up a little and reaching between them, to the trail of neatly-trimmed hair that meandered down between two sharp hipbones, and the skin underneath, sensitized to the point of madness, if the choked sound that escaped Cas was anything to go by. And now, wrapping his hand, his trigger hand, the hand that had retired so many, around the full length of him, feeling him hot and alive under his fingers, Dean took Cas apart. Slowly. They had time. They had plenty of time.

“It would seem,” Cas said, and his voice was shaking, “that you have me, actually.” For his trouble, Dean gave him a laugh and a slow twist of his wrist that made Cas squirm.

Finally, Cas fell. But it was an unhurried thing, back arching like a bow-bend off of the bed, which had become rumpled, and one quiet cry with wide eyes turned heavenward; Dean met them, caught Cas before he hit the ground and shattered. (It was only fair, Dean thought, kissing the sweat from his brow, since he was the one doing the pushing, that he do the catching, too.)

Then Dean, with a shock, came back to himself. He felt blood thundering in his veins, felt the discordant noise of his own pleasure ringing in his ears, heard his own breathing harsh and staccato. It was loud, too loud. It hurt. He felt like a dozen radios tuned to half channels, gritty static and jangling guitars and garbled voices, as he pressed into the sweat-sweet slide of Cas’ skin.

“Hey,” Cas said, through the din. “Hey, it’s alright. It’s alright. I have you, remember? Just feel whatever you’re feeling.” He ran his hand through Dean’s hair, steadying him. “Let go.”

And suddenly it was silent. The grey noise gave way and the strident music died. It was quiet enough, for once, to hear a pin drop, and to hear all the angels that danced on it. Dean unraveled and ignited like a million filaments, gleaming white hot before going out, spilling onto Cas’ thigh, sighing. He collapsed down, wrapping himself around Cas like he wanted to sink straight into him.

“Okay?” Cas asked, letting him. He continued stroking Dean’s hair, his neck, the trembling line of his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Dean said into the vast silence. “Yeah, okay.”

“Good.” Cas said, and kissed the top of Dean’s head like a benediction.

Dean, at last, felt clean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, guys, I don't meant to keep splitting chapters, but the tone shifts so wildly between scenes that it's the only thing that makes sense to me.
> 
> This was a strange one to write.  
> 1.) The 'love scene' in the movie is rape-y as hell, and in the book it's dub-con at best. (And, as [BurningTea](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea) points out, about as hot as pieces of furniture having sex.) I really, really wanted to avoid both of those things.  
> 2.) I've tried to keep the mixed metaphors to a minimum, but I couldn't excise them all. Hopefully they work.  
> 3.) There is no POV-switch in this chapter. It's all on Dean. I thought about switching to Cas but I couldn't get it to work.  
> 4.) Thematically, there are many similarities to Chapter 8 in "What is Hidden", but I hope I've managed to make it different enough to be interesting.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	7. Chapter 7

The morning broke like a fever. Waxy light spilled through the east-facing windows, gilding the backs of the quiet mechanical beasts. They did not sleep, not really, but they grew still in the night, recognizing the setting of the sun. Their mild eyes blinked slowly through the dark and their artificial lungs moved real air softly through the house.

Hannah was still there. Kevin could not hear her moving, but felt the presence of another person acutely, like a change in barometric pressure. He padded on bare feet across the chilly winter floorboards, intent on coffee, murmuring his good mornings to his friends. Their gently swaying heads followed his progress to the kitchen. In his peripheral vision, the griffin stretched out its left wing, then its right, clicking its beak softly.

He peered into the refrigerator, wondering what Hannah might like to eat. She must be very hungry, he realized, since she had not eaten at all last night (he cringed a little at being a poor host, but he was so shaken by her sudden appearance that he hadn’t thought clearly), and he did not know when she’d had her last meal. He felt a presence materialize behind him, like a ghost, and flinched as he turned around.

“Oh,” he said, into Hannah’s blue stare. “It’s you.”

“That’s correct.” She looked at him curiously, from much too close up, as though trying to figure out if she, too, should say something obvious. In the end she went with: “You are looking in the refrigerator.”

“Uh, heh, yeah, I...I guess I am.” Kevin said, fumbling with the carton of soy milk in his hands. “Do you want some breakfast?”

“I am hungry, but...I don’t have any money.” Here she looked away, seemingly uncomfortable, but Kevin was too taken aback by what she’d said to wonder why. “I can pay you some other way, if you like.”

“Hannah, you don’t have to _pay_ me for breakfast!”

“I don’t?” A quick blink of surprise, then her face was calm again.

“ _No._ It’s polite to share food with your guests,” Kevin said, still with his mouth agape. Then he remembered it was also polite not to stare, and looked down at the carton he was nearly crushing. He loosened his grip. The atmosphere seemed to crackle faintly, like it did before one of those brief, spectacular lightning storms that came down from the mountains in the spring. Something about Hannah had insinuated itself into the air he breathed, a sense of strangeness, of otherness, that clung to her like the scent of ozone during those spring storms. She’d said she was new in town, but that wasn’t it, that wasn’t the newness that she wore, radiating out from under those drab clothes.

It was like she was new to _life_ in general.

That was it, he realized, watching her watch him with those impossible mermaid eyes of hers, without any awareness of personal space, or, apparently, blinking. That was the raw-skinned truth of it. She so clearly was new to it all--not just the city, but _everything_ \--in a way that was at odds with her serious face and her mid-level-office-worker clothes. And suddenly he knew exactly what he was looking at. He felt a thrill of fear-mingled excitement run through him, but she just looked at him with her earnest expression and waited for him to do something, the way a child might.

He poured a glass of milk and held it out to her, and she took it, slowly, as though it might be a trick. Then, apparently satisfied that it wasn’t going to blow up in her hands, she drank it down without pausing to breathe.

“You look better,” Kevin commented, his mouth dry. There were no lingering signs of injury, and she had washed her face and combed her hair sometime in the night. Strange that he had not heard her.

“Just better?” she asked, with a slight tilt of her head, and if Kevin didn’t know better, he’d think she might actually be _teasing_ him.

“Well, I mean, you look beautiful, of course.” He poured her another glass and turned back to the fridge, letting the chilled air cool his reddening face.

“Good,” Hannah said, sounding immensely relieved for some reason. “How old are you, Kevin?”

“Me? I’m twenty-one.” He reached to the back and pulled out a pigeon egg. It was small with a creamy white shell, and he stood admiring the mother-of-pearl sheen of it for a moment. He only took one or two a week, from a different pair each time, but still felt a pang of guilt when he did. Still, he figured it was kinder than selling the living, breathing birds in order to buy farm-raised eggs, which were still rare enough to be counted as luxuries. His could afford them, of course. His occasional work with Tyrell, and the other rich eccentrics who hired him to build their own bestiaries, paid handsomely. And, of course, he had a whole winged host living several floors above him, worth more than their weight in gold. He was also generally frugal. His money tended to last, and he was not short of it at the moment.

However, he tried to avoid drawing attention to himself whenever possible, preferring to flit along unnoticed, a shadow in the shadows. Someone would be bound to notice if the strange, single man living in the giant empty building made a habit of buying things he didn’t look like he could afford. No, better to take one or two, cringing in apology, every so often and enjoy them like the extraordinary treats that they were, and keep himself hidden, safe.

“Twenty-one?” Kevin almost missed her saying. “How do you like it?”

“How do I like being...oh, right, because you’re...um. It’s alright, I guess.” He scratched nervously at his hair, and held out the egg to her. “Would you like one of these for breakfast?”

“What is it?”

“It’s an egg. I get them sometimes.”

“I’ve never seen one before. Is it alive?”

“An egg? Well, yes and no.”

“How can something be alive and not alive?” Hannah asked, taking the egg from his hands and holding it very carefully in her palm.

“It’s, well, it has the _potential_ to grow into a living thing. But it isn’t, itself, one. You know? At least not at this stage of its development. So you don’t have to feel guilty about taking something’s life.”

“Guilty?” Hannah asked, still looking at the egg. “I have never felt that. Or at least, I don’t think I have. How do you know when you’re feeling it?” Then she looked up at him, quickly, as though she’d said something horribly wrong. “I mean, I...of course I feel…”

“Hey, it’s okay, seriously. I know what you are. I mean, I know _who_ you are.”

“You do?” She backed up a step.

Kevin shrugged, avoided eye contact for a moment, then gave his brightest smile. “Yeah, don’t sweat it. So do you want me to cook you this or not?”

“I...yes, please.” Hannah said, handing the egg back to him, carefully, between her slender fingers, as though it would suddenly crack if she held it in her whole hand. Kevin remembered the day Michael had ordered all barcodes removed from Nexus-6 fingerprints.

“Great.” He made his way into the kitchen and lit the flame of the stove, watching it flicker an uncertain blue before it caught properly.

“You didn’t come into my room last night,” Hannah observed, leaning against the counter with a display of casualness Kevin wouldn’t have thought possible previously.

“Uh, no. I didn’t.” Was she merely stating obvious things again? Was this a thing Sixes did? Was it a thing she thought humans did? “I stayed in my own room,” he added, just in case.

“I thought perhaps...but you said I look beautiful.” She seemed very confused.

“Yeah, and?” The water in the pot began to steam, and he carefully placed the egg down, watching a tiny film of bubbles adhere to its shell.

“Oh, I see. You prefer men, then.”

“Prefer them to what?”

“To...females.”

“What? I like females just fine. I mean, well...mostly I’m just into building stuff.” He squinted at the simmering pot in front of him, trying to parse the direction of the conversation and feeling like the was missing a large chunk of it. The egg jumped a little as the water came to the boil. “Wait. Are you asking me why I didn’t try and...take advantage of you?”

“It’s my function.”

“Jesus,” Kevin said, covering his eyes with his hands. “Why would you think I'd do that?”

“You are one of the only human males I have ever met who hasn’t done so.”

“Jesus, Hannah!”

“I’ve said something wrong.”

“No, you haven’t said anything wrong,” he said hastily, not wanting to upset her. But a quick glance revealed her to still be more confused than upset. “Just...forget it, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, though her brows were still drawn together as she looked towards the main room. “Oh, hello, Lucifer,” she said conversationally.

Kevin bit back a shout of surprise as he turned to see the figure of a man in the middle of the room. He hadn’t heard the telltale squeak of the distressed hinges as the doors opened. The first thing Kevin noticed about him was the burn-like wounds rising from below his collar and spangling his face. The second thing he noticed was that, like Hannah, he _stared_. But where Hannah looked at Kevin as though she were trying to put him together, like a puzzle, this one looked at him as though he wanted nothing more than to take him apart for the sheer hell of it. The man smiled at him, and Kevin wished he would not.

“Hello, Hannah,” he said.

“Uh,” Kevin said, eyeing the newcomer, who seemed to bear the morning light in with him. “Hello.”

“This is the friend I was telling you about, Kevin. Lucifer, this is my savior, Kevin.”

The blue eyes fixed on him more firmly, hard shards of Offworld sky. Kevin felt some of the air leave his lungs, as though it had been pressed out of him, but Lucifer’s smile seemed genuine. But those wounds, that bouquet of burns, sizzling their way up from from under his dark jacket and across the skin of his face…and those eyes, those eyes.

Kevin tried not to gape.

“I’m grateful to you for taking care of my friend, Kevin,” Lucifer was saying, now idly petting the opalescent scales of a small dragon where it curled itself around its perch. It turned its serpentine neck and blinked its agate eyes at him, before snapping its jaws and putting its head back under its wing. Lucifer laughed, a short, sharp sound that might have been delight or derision. “Nice pets you’ve got here,” he said, nodding at the sleeping dragon. “You live here all by yourself, Kevin?”

“Yeah,” Kevin said, warily.

"Offworld?"

“Offworld’s never appealed to me. Too...regimented.”

“Mm, that’s so,” Lucifer said, rubbing absently at one of the burns on his neck. “In ways you would not possibly understand. No matter. I like a man who stays put, Kevin.”

“Yeah,” Kevin said again, feeling like the ground was tilting slightly under his feet. Distantly he heard the rumble of boiling water and remembered what he was doing. “How about some breakfast? I was just making some.”

“Wonderful. Hannah, a word.”

She frowned a little but walked over to him obediently. Kevin pretended not to listen as he dug into the refrigerator for more food.

“What’s the matter?” Hannah asked. Her voice was low and shot through with concern.

“There’s only two of us now. We’re the last.” Lucifer sounded gentle, regretful. It sent a shiver through Kevin. The house seemed to have gotten colder since Lucifer arrived, and Kevin couldn't say why.

“What do you mean?”

“Hunters. They got Anna, they got Balthazar. It was unpleasant.”

“ _Hunters_ ,” Hannah hissed, spitting the word as though it burned her tongue.

“Apparently, yes.”

“Then we’re stupid, and we’ll die.” The last word was sullen and final. Kevin could almost hear her crossing her arms defensively as he stood facing the stove and adding the other egg to the boiling water. Two eggs in one day. His whole week’s ration. Part of him reeled at the extravagance of it, but the meal had taken on an overwhelming pall of importance. The weight of the whole sky seemed to hang over Kevin, as though two fiery creatures had suddenly descended into his Monday-morning kitchen and were now weaving his fate over toast and tea. He set the timer.

“No,” was the quiet reply, and it was just as final. “We won’t. Have faith.”

The following silence threatened to engulf everything in the room. “The eggs will be done in a minute,” Kevin said at last, turning to look at them as they stood in a pale gold square of sunlight. The blinked in surprise, having clearly forgotten he was there. He watched them for a moment, the way they moved around the room with blade-like precision, the fatal grace of each step, the terrible beauty of their faces, their hands.

“Why are you staring at us, Kevin?” Lucifer asked, clearly more adroit with human customs than Hannah. Perhaps he was older.

“You’re so…” He struggled for the right word. Terrifying? Sublime? Both? “Perfect.”

“Kevin knows.”

“Does he, now?”

Kevin nodded, a little wildly, watching the metallic luster of Lucifer’s smile in the wan light. “Yeah. I figured it out.”

“Clever boy.” The praise was silver-edged and sharp.

“What generation are you?” Kevin asked, more bravely than he felt.

“Six,” Hannah said.

“Ah, I _knew_ it,” Kevin said. A bubble of excitement rose up from underneath the trepidation. “I did some work on the Nexus-6 prototype. I do genetic work for Tyrell sometimes, you see. There’s some of me in you.”

“You make friends,” Hannah offered, sounding pleased, as though last night’s joke had finally revealed itself to her.

“That’s right. Can you… Could you show me something?”

“Show you something?” Lucifer asked, canting his head like a bird. “Like what, Kevin?”

“Like...I dunno. Anything?”

Lucifer still smiled, and spoke almost fondly, as though to a sleepy child: “We’re not computers running programs, Kevin. We’re physical.”

“I think, therefore, I am.” Hannah said. She was smiling as well, now.

“Yes, exactly. Very good Hannah. Still, we should humor our host, don’t you think?”

“I suppose we should,” she agreed, looking thoughtful.

The timer suddenly dinged, a trill of banal life intruding on the scene unfolding in front of Kevin. At its noise Hannah’s eyes suddenly got bright and she walked over to the pan. Without a moment’s hesitation, pushed up her sleeve and plunged her hand into the boiling water. She grinned proudly at Kevin as she withdrew one of the pigeon eggs and put it in his hand.

For a moment, Kevin just stared in wide-eyed astonishment, until the heat of the egg seared into his hand. He set it down carefully on the counter and watched her withdraw the other one. There was nothing he could say, and gave a slightly delirious laugh.

“You look like you’ve just met the devil,” Lucifer said, raising one eyebrow in bland amusement.

“I…”

“Don’t worry,” Lucifer said, perhaps realizing that Kevin wouldn't be able to deploy language properly right now. “The devil is your friend.” He walked over to the chessboard, which stood on a rickety table in the corner. A tiny bird flitted nervously up from the scarred wooden surface, its brilliant blue plumage catching fire in the morning light. Lucifer followed its azure trail for a moment as it disappeared into some dim corner, then turned his attention back to Kevin. “You could help us, Kevin.”

“What do you mean?”

“As Hannah rightly points out, you _make_ your friends. You made us. You--alright, yes, _you_ didn’t make us, don’t interrupt--you must wonder why we came home? We are merely following our nature, Kevin. You’ve heard of natal homing? No? We’ve come home to die. Our swan-song. Only, we’re not quite ready to sing yet, are we, Hannah? So.”

Kevin felt his heart lurch towards his throat as the full force of the words hit him. “You want _me_ to…Lucifer, I wish I could. Really, I do. But biomechanics is not my thing. I do surface work. Skin work. You’re out of my league.”

Lucifer laughed at that, dipping his head low, as though he were blushing. “Oh, Kevin, no. I know you can’t do anything for us, yourself, but I do think you can help us more than you realize. And I don’t just want that for myself, believe me.”

“What do you mean?” Kevin asked again. He felt strange, fevered. Elated and fearful and fighting off a headache behind his right eye, as though he were trying to transcribe revelatory gibberish from a dead language into something he could understand.

“If you can’t help us, Hannah will die. Soon, in fact.” He didn’t wait for Kevin’s response, but picked up a chess piece curiously. A rook, Kevin noted, the white one. Not his own. “Is your opponent good?”

“Doctor Tyrell?” Kevin asked, and the headache moved to the other eye. “He’s...a genius. I’ve only ever beaten him once. I don’t think I’ll beat him in this game, and it’s been going on a while. He designed you, you know.”

“Mmm,” Lucifer said, noncommittally, putting the rook back. “Maybe he could help.”

Kevin looked at Hannah, who was watching him closely. “I’d be happy to mention it to him,” he said to her inscrutable face.

“It might be better if I asked him in person,” Lucifer said amiably.

“Uh…”

“But I know he’s not an easy man to get to.”

“No, that’s for sure.”

“So you’ll help us?” Lucifer asked, coming back over to where Kevin and Hannah stood in a strange little tableau, among the chipped crockery and mismatched silverware.

“I don’t know if I can,” Kevin admitted, looking away.

“Please,” Hannah said at last. “You’re our only friend.”

Kevin sighed, a great rush of air he hadn’t noticed he was holding, and braced himself against the countertop. He turned away, focusing on removing the shells from the rapidly-cooling eggs. He was being called. What else could he do but answer?

“Sure,” Kevin said. “Of course. But first, how about some breakfast?”

Behind him, where he could not see, Lucifer smiled.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry for splitting this yet again, but I am fighting off illness and my ability to focus is shot. I wanted to give you something, though, and I didn't want to make you wait until I got my wits about me again. I hope you like it.  
> Sorry for all the metaphors. I love them.


	8. Chapter 8

Sam was dreaming. He’d had this dream, actually, for weeks now. The realization came to him only a few moments after he began falling, recognizing the strange liquid quality of his limbs as he hurtled slowly towards a seemingly-bottomless pit. He felt himself stretch and morph, his bones breaking and reforming in the same instant, muscles shredding and reknitting, skin flaying itself and then re-adhering. He was being remade as he fell. He turned into something hideous and stretched out, his body becoming monstrous. The tidal force of _whatever_ it was below him rendered him like molten metal, melting and shrieking, but unable to make a sound. He _knew_ it was a dream. He felt the telltale time dilation and saw the stutter-cuts that showed the spaces between reality, and yet he could not stop himself from falling until the last uncertain speck of light, many miles overhead, disappeared. Sometimes Dean fell with him, holding him in a death grip, but mostly he just called out to Sam, his voice echoing forever, and Sam fell alone. This time he was alone. But there was something writhing inside of him, bearing him howling downwards.

He did not wake with a start. He was practiced at having nightmares. This one was relatively new, it was true, and his quiet, mostly-pleasant life in Stanford had removed some of his mental calluses, flaking them away almost imperceptibly. He was softer than he’d been three years ago. Softer. But not soft.

He sat up from his sprawl on the couch. It barely contained him, and he felt the loss of his own bed keenly, though Dean had given him every blanket, pillow and soft furnishing Sam might want, and many that he didn’t. It reminded him of being a kid, when Dean would, more or less, build a nest for Sam each night on their threadbare sofa. This had always involved great deal of patting and smoothing and fretting over the correct position of each layer. (Mercifully, Dean didn’t try to do this for him any more, though Sam could see that he had to fight the urge as he handed over the bedding to let Sam do it himself.)

Dean would retreat to the mattress on the floor, under John’s old military-issue sleeping bag. Sam occasionally had nightmares, even then. He learned to be quiet about them, because Dean would, without fail, spring awake if Sam made too many obvious noises of distress. Sometimes, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, Sam would watch Dean sleep--which he knew, of course, Dean would find creepy as hell, and so never mentioned it. He had savored these rare moments when he was the one doing the looking-after, the feeling of being in a position to protect for once, instead of being watched, always watched. Dean’s face had looked so calm and peaceful in the cold blue glow of the night-light, and Sam had felt the ineffable, animal warmth of protectiveness settle in his bones. The lingering effects of the nightmares would retreat then. His love took up too much space for the fear to find purchase. He had never felt that for his father, not to the same extent. For Bobby, of course, whose recent illness had shaken Sam more than John’s death had; he felt it for Jody; he even felt it for Jess, though he didn’t like to admit that to himself in broad day, but for Dean most of all.

John had gotten a job with the LAPD when Sam was twelve, though the promotion to hunter would not come for another three years. They had moved into a much nicer house, spartan but spacious compared to their old one in Kansas. They’d gotten their own room with bunk beds, then. From the bottom bunk, Sam never again got a chance to watch Dean like he had from his vantage point on the couch.

Still, sometimes he would wake from a nightmare and listen to Dean’s even breathing above him, and picture how he looked, and the same protectiveness would settle over Sam, pushing the residual terror away.

It was that feeling that had consumed him when he finally staggered back to the penthouse after earning his paycheck the hard and nauseating way. There were signs of life as he let himself in, but they were mixed: two empty tumblers on the table, still with the dregs of bourbon clinging to them, and the bottle itself, with half the label peeled away, but no pile of blankets on the couch, and the washing machine’s light blinking an irritable red in the darkness. There were no signs of a struggle, but Sam’s nerves were strung like a bowstring on the verge of snapping.

Dean’s door was closed. Dean’s door was _never_ closed, and the strangeness of it was the only thing that stopped Sam from calling out. He stalked through the living room with his silent hunter’s tread, until his feet caught on something on the floor. He bent to pick it up, frowning, then immediately dropped it when he realized it was Dean’s boxer shorts.

Oh, so. There was that. The previous tension in him fled but was replaced by another kind and yeah, Dean would probably call him a perv and not meet his eyes at breakfast if he found out, but Sam couldn’t displace the burning need to make sure Dean was alright. He crept forward and put his ear to the door. There were no obvious sounds of…a struggle, but he also could not hear any suggestion of breathing. The silence was oppressive. It was why Dean left the door open. He knew how Sam needed that constant background noise when they were sharing a space; he needed it, too. Very carefully Sam turned the knob and pushed the door open a fraction.

A pale strip of light landed on the bed and okay, yeah, that was enough. Sam closed the door with as much haste as his stealth would allow. He beat a hasty retreat back to the living room and found the blankets had actually been put under the coffee table. As he made up his bed, he thought of Dean’s face in the darkness, with its hard lines softened, and the way Cas had been curled around him, with a hand right over his heart, as though he was shielding him even as they slept.

Well, maybe Dean had been right about replicants and their feelings, after all.

He’d climbed into the shower with a sigh and promised himself he’d call Jessica in the morning.

It was still mostly dark, now, and a glance at his watch on the coffee table showed it to be just after five. He debated going back to sleep, but then heard Dean’s door open with an uncertain creak and abandoned the idea.

Cas crept from Dean’s door as from the scene of a crime, which, Sam supposed, it was. For a moment Cas didn’t notice him. But he was possessed of inhumanly good senses, and Sam was reminded of that as Cas’ focus suddenly landed on him with the finality of a gun barrel. He stopped short, as though he were the one in sights, and stared at Sam wide-eyed. “Um.”

“Hey, Cas.”

“Hello, Sam.” Sam barely held back a laugh at the look on Cas’ face, but he managed.

“I hung your clothes up to dry in the bathroom,” he said, congratulating himself on how casual his own voice sounded.

“You did?” Cas looked down at the crumpled towel he was wearing and then back at the washing machine in apparent confusion.

“Well, yeah. They were going to get wrinkled sitting in there all night, and I couldn’t tell if they were alright to be put in the dryer.”

“Oh. Well. Thank you.” He seemed to regain a modicum of his usual composure, his posture dropping from overwrought to merely wrought. Still, same could feel the froth of tension hissing below the surface, filling the air between them.

“I take it that huge wad of money on the counter is what you cleared out of Tyrell’s petty cash account.”

Cas looked stricken again, and Sam immediately regretted his words.

“No one knows you were there, Cas,” Sam said quietly. “ No one knows you’re here, either. As far as anyone’s concerned, you’ve skipped town.”

Cas dropped his eyes for a moment with a skittish nod, then looked back up at Sam with the kind of devastating earnestness that could only be described as human. “I’m sorry that the responsibility for covering up my actions fell to you, Sam.”

Sam gave a small cough. “It’s....it’s fine. Well, it’s not _fine_. It was pretty gruesome. But,” he added hastily, seeing Cas’ pained expression, “it was necessary. And I’ve seen worse. Hell, I’ve, I’ve _done_ worse.” (‘To people like you,’ the voice in his head added coldly.) He let out a shaky breath. “You _saved my brother_ , and you did it without hesitation, even though you knew who he was and what he did. Does.”

This time when Cas nodded it was solemn. “Of course.” Like it was the most obvious fucking thing in the world.

“Of course.” Sam flopped back on to the couch, the remnants of the dream still clinging to him heavily.

“What now?”

“What?”

“What do I do now, Sam?” He sounded so genuinely lost as he asked that Sam had to sit up again.

“Well, what do you _want_ to do?”

“That’s the second time I’ve been asked what I want in the last twelve hours,” Cas mused, mostly to himself, then looked at Sam again. His face, as usual, was very serious. “Sam, you must see that I can’t stay here. I’m hunted. I’ve broken...more laws than I can count. Dean’s in danger as long as I’m anywhere near him. So are you.”

Sam made a rueful face, and tried to find some denial to offer, but couldn’t. “Yeah, I know.”

“So, I should go.” The stone words landed on Sam’s chest.

“What? No! You can’t just run, Cas. _Think_. What do you know, really know, about being human?”

Cas looked stung. “You don’t have to remind me that I’m not…”

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean, you’ve spent your entire life in that hermetic little lab of Tyrell’s. I know you have memories, and programming, or whatever it was that Dr Eldon called it. You’re clearly very smart. But, just…you haven’t learned yet. You don’t know the world, not really. People will see you coming a mile away, and they’ll know something’s off. They’ll put two and two together and set some other hunter on you. Or they’ll...take advantage of you. And trust me when I say that Dean would not handle it well.”

“I suppose you’re right. And I suppose...it doesn’t matter anyway. Incept dates can’t be altered. I’ve never had full access to the prototype database--for obvious reasons--but if I’ve done my calculations right, I’m nearly three years old. Within six months the DNA coding will start to mutate and the helix structure will begin to unravel. In ten months, the monocarpic presentations will begin to develop on the torso and neck. Total shutdown will probably be in fourteen months.” He paused to consider, dispassionate and analytical as if discussing a chess move. “Possibly fifteen.”

Sam closed his eyes. “Look, we’ll figure out what to do once he wakes up. But first, go put on some clothes and I’ll make some coffee.” He opened his eyes again and tried his best to look reassuring. “We’d never force you to stay against your will. Okay? But just...don’t make any hasty decisions. You’re safe here for now. We’ll figure it out, the three of us.”

Cas didn’t speak, but Sam saw his throat work, as though swallowing had become a problem. He nodded again, this time meekly, and headed into the bathroom.

Counselling his brother’s illegal boyfriend on the perils of the big, bad world when he should be on his morning jog. How the fuck was this his life?

Sam rose with a final grimace and made his way to the coffee maker, and wondered how he might gain access to Tyrell’s prototype database.

****

Michael always spent Monday afternoon in his home office. Its cool green vistas and eternal summer air offered respite from the wood-panelled gloom of his main office. And the lab. He loved the lab, of course. It was a place of _doing_ , of action and purpose, but it was also hectic for just those reasons. The quiet let him view his R and D team as from a great height: a machine of highly-tuned, intricately working parts, each turned to a precise task, in a kind of beauty that threw up sparks as it burned the world and made it new again. But, like a machine, it was loud and it sometimes malfunctioned. The last few weeks had been, in his mind, nothing but a series of near-catastrophic malfunctions as the ghost in the machine suddenly decided to rattle its chains.

He stood and paced the room with more irritation than he would dare show to his subordinates, gripping a delicate tea cup so tightly that it threatened to crack. It had grown cold, but he drank it anyway. “Note to the kitchen,” he said aloud, “my tea is cold.”

“Would you like another?” the intercom system asked.

“No.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Is there any news on Bradbury’s condition? We’ve had to push back the next wave of incept dates a week already.”

“She’s still very ill, sir. Her doctor suggests it will be a month before she can be cleared to return to the lab. We can tell her assistant to go forward with the grafts.”

“No,” Michael said again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Miss Bradbury is the only one I trust to do the graft work. We will just have to wait. _Damn_ it. I _hate_ being behind schedule. This is going to knock our share prices considerably.” He sighed.

“Yes, sir.”

Michael continued to pace, and his steps were like a metronome in the empty room. The rhythm calmed him, made him more decisive. “Call to my stockbroker and tell him to trade half my stock in the Tannhauser mine for….”

But there was a loud beep of someone announcing themselves, and the intercom system said: “Mr Kevin Tran.”

Michael stopped pacing and put his cup down. “ _Today_? We don’t have an appointment for another week.” He frowned. “Purpose of visit?”

Here there was a crunch of static, and Kevin’s own voice filled the space. “Um, hello Dr Tyrell.”

“Kevin,” he said carefully, reigning in his anger only with great effort. He cleared his throat. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh, Queen to Bishop Six.”

“Wh--nonsense,” Michael said. “Wait a moment, Kevin.” His anger at the interruption evaporated as the scent of competition called to him, like blood to a hound. He walked quickly over to the chessboard at the far side of the room. “Queen to Bishop Six?” He made the move. Then he stood absorbed in the elliptical machinations of thought that caused his mind to spread the board to fill up the whole of the room, the garden. The figures rose up around him. They were brought to life, made animate, turned their pebble eyes to him and waited for his command in perfect obedience. His skin prickled in anticipation. He looked around his kingdom, saw the weakness in the advancing forces. “Knight takes Queen,” he said, narrowing his eyes. And so it was. He smiled. “What do you say to that, Mr Tran?”

There was nothing for a moment, then more static. “Um.” This time it was more uncertain than before, and Michael smiled more broadly. “Bishop to King Seven. Checkmate. I think.”

“Check--” The smile on Michael’s face froze, then twisted. He saw his kingdom begin to crack as the advancing forces closed in with the distant sound of trumpets. He shook his head, and the vision retreated. He was in his office again. “Interesting, Kevin. You’ve had a brainstorm, have you? You’d better come in and discuss it.”

A few minutes later, he heard the sound of the private elevator open and the sound of uncertain feet. Followed by the sound of much more certain feet. “Um,” Kevin’s voice said, from behind him, “I brought a friend.” Michael turned, with his hand still hovering an inch away from Kevin’s Bishop, not willing to commit to the move yet. He lowered his hand and turned calmly towards his visitors, squaring his shoulders as he did.

“I’m surprised you didn’t come sooner.” _Though you certainly tried_ , was the unspoken jibe.

Lucifer caught it; of course he did. He was a marvel. He could catch anything that Michael might throw at him, and the scent of the game filled Michael’s nostrils more fully. That wild scent, lightning, blood, glory. Pure. He ceased to notice Kevin entirely. His apprehensive, wide-eyed face became, in Michael’s mind, as featureless as one of the chess pieces.

Lucifer advanced a step, seeming to relegate Kevin to the same role. “It’s not easy to meet your maker,” he said softly. His eyes--fantastic things!--flitted finch-like around the room for an instant and then locked on to Michael as though on to a holy object. That strange religious fervor that you sometimes found in them, he remembered. That abject adoration, hot as a flame.

Michael laughed, moving away from the chess board. Its theoretical pleasures were replaced with something keener, sharper, more in-the-skin.

“What can your maker do for you?”

“Can he repair what he makes?”

Hm. A not entirely unexpected question, though it did dim the bright flame of Michael’s pride a little. No matter. He shrugged. “You want to modified?”

“Not modified, no. Something more...drastic.”

“Oh? What seems to be the problem?”

“Death.”

Michael stopped his slow, sideways advance. “Death? That’s…” He laughed.”I’m not actually God.”

Lucifer continued his. “No. But you are like him.”

“Ha! Well played. It’s still out of even my jurisdiction, I’m afraid.”

Somehow Lucifer had moved several steps in the space of a blink. Surely that wasn’t fair, moving out of turn. Michael got a look at his wounds (the most beautiful flowers, he thought, are often the ones that happen only at death), his fierce, flawless eyes.

“I want more _life_ , fucker.”

Michael swallowed the expletive, spit like poison from that mouth, but held his ground. He would not cede so easily. He stared Lucifer down and ignored the sound of trumpets. “These are the facts of life. When it comes to the inevitable close, we’re no different. The King and the Pawn all end up in the same box. We’re brothers, you and I.”

Lucifer’s eyes glittered oddly. Michael took a breath and tried another route, one that the analytical precision of Lucifer’s mind might better appreciate. “I’ll be blunt. For men to make an alteration in the evolution of an organic system, whether they be the makers or otherwise, is fatal.”

“Why?”

“A coding sequence cannot be revised once it’s been established.”

Lucifer frowned at this, moving away a step and looking down towards his hands. The backs of them had started to blister slightly. “Why not?” The question was small, childlike.

Ah, there. Michael maintained his eye contact, his position, did not yield his square. “By the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutations give rise to revertant colonies like rats leaving a sinking ship. The, ah, ship? It sinks.”

Lucifer looked up sharply at that. “But then, what about EMS recombination?”

“My, you _are_ quick. Sadly, we’ve already tried that. A mutagen as potent as ethyl methane sulfonate creates a virus. The virus spreads so quickly and so virulently that the patient is dead almost as soon as they hit the table.”

“Then...a repressor protein that blocks the operating cells.”

“Oh, you-- _you_ are the one I should have had in my lab, Lucifer.” Michael said, smiling wistfully. “But again, no. It wouldn’t obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in the newly-formed DNA strand. Another virus develops. Same result.”

“I don’t understand. What kind of scientist wouldn’t build a failsafe into his own system?”

“Oh, I did, I did. But I’m sorry to say, you’re not it.” He reached out and touched Lucifer’s shoulder. “You were built as well as we could make you.”

Lucifer smiled, a strangely watery smile that threatened to seep out of his eyes. “But not to last.”

Michael didn’t move his hand. “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, Lucifer. And you have burned so very, very brightly. Look at you! The brightest star in Heaven! The prodigal son returned. Quite the prize.”

Lucifer looked thoughtful, then. His eyes grew calm, the roaring riptides in their depths seemed to still. He looked at Michael’s face very closely. Michael let him look. “I’ve done,” he said, putting his own hand, with its blush of stigmata, on Michael’s shoulder, “questionable things.”

“And extraordinary things!” Michael consoled him, in their stiff-armed half embrace. “You are an extraordinary thing. Revel in your time.”

“Questionable things,” Lucifer repeated, smiling. “But nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn’t let you into Heaven for.”

The last thing Michael heard, as his head splintered like dry tinder under a boot, was the sound of leaden trumpets. He tasted soot as one by one his synapses sent up their final signal fires into his spasming body. He did not see.

He did not see.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mostly recovered now, but still not at full capacity (though am I ever?). We are finally nearing the end. I appreciate you sticking with me this long. You should say hi! I love to chat, and I don't know why this site doesn't have a DM function. Bit of an oversight, I say.
> 
> I love Cas and Sam's friendship. I just. I love it.The end of S10 kind of soured me on it, sadly, but I hope I've captured some of their sweet, brotherly dynamic here.
> 
> Lucifer and Michael's confrontation, of course, is taken from the script of the film, with a few alterations.
> 
> Anyway! In other news: [BurningTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea) and I are doing a DeanCas "Ghost Story for Christmas" gift exchange this year. Reviving an old, sadly neglected tradition (of which _A Christmas Carol_ seems to be the only surviving popular example). The stories are a suggested word limit of 3000, based on existing tales. Tea already has her story chosen. I, sadly, do not. They'll post Christmas Eve! If you want to get on board, just let one of us know. If not, hey, I'll still drink wassail to your health.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endless thanks to [BurningTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea) for listening to me bitch and talking me down from various writing-related ledges. You're a great beta reader. :)

_Excruciate_ : The prefix meaning _out of_ , or _former_ ; the trunk meaning _cross_ , the dead wood that bore dying fruit; the suffix the hinge on which the condemned man swung. The pain of coming down from the cross, rather than going to it. But the dead felt no pain, surely. Only a living man might know the pain of an incomplete execution, borne down into the dust with breath still in him. The act of mercy brought the pain out, rather than letting it fade away to nothing.

That certainly explained breakfast.

It was a botched job, hopelessly late in the morning, fuelled by coffee and some kind pastel hoops of confectionary floating in a pool of soy milk. The milk slowly turned pink. Cas possessed what might be called an immoderate sweet tooth, but this tested even his limits.

“You okay there, man? You look like your Angel-Os insulted you or something.”

Dean’s voice broke Cas’ dreary reverie and snapped him back into the present, rather more mundane scene in which they were all now engaged.

“Maybe because he’s a _grown man_ and wants some actual, real food, Dean. What the hell, I thought you loved cooking breakfast.”

“I do!” Dean said defensively, around a spoonful of cereal. “But there’s nothing in this house except frozen pizza and bourbon at the minute.”

“Should I even begin to list all the ways in which that’s deplorable or…”

“No, I think I have the list memorized by now, thanks, Sammy. And anyway, I haven’t exactly been, uh, time rich here.”

Cas watched this back and forth while nursing a cup of very strong coffee. There was no real ire in the exchange. It seemed almost choreographed, as though they’d had the same argument over countless breakfast tables in their lives, a kind of gentle combat, rough affection. Was this, he wondered, the way of families? It seemed so different to the way he and Michael interacted. He searched his memories--supplying, as he did, the appropriately doleful computer metaphor--and brought up images of his absent childhood: summer with Michael at the lake house, swimming in the pink-edged dark (did he know how to swim?); aged ten, sitting in biology class behind Steve and watching the back of his neck with an interest Cas didn’t fully understand (he’d never even met Steve.); scared and thrilled in equal measure as Gabriel stole his father’s car and took them all for a joyride, nearly crashing into the treeline at one point (he’d never met...he’d never even _met_ Gabriel).

“Cas, seriously.” Cas felt a hand on his arm, and looked over to see Sam peering at him with an expression of deep concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Yeah,” Dean said from the other side, eyeing him just as closely. “What gives, man?” He laid his own hand over Cas’ knuckles, where they gripped convulsively at his spoon. He looked down and noticed, with some shock, that he had actually bent the metal in grooves around his fingers. He let go. He steadied himself, realigned his orbit in this new solar system, with its binary suns. They continued to look at him, offering quiet reassurances with the palms of their hands. Cas managed to smile a little. He found, to his surprise, that it was sincere.

“Yes, I…” He cleared his throat, which seemed to have closed in on itself. “I’m just over thinking things, I’m afraid.”

Dean squeezed his hand slightly before letting go, the touch lingering as he did. “Yeah, well don’t.” He turned back to his cereal. “Whatever’s going on in that head of yours, we can work it out when we’re clear of Gordon.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, patting Cas’ shoulder. “Normally I’d call Dean out on wanting to avoid grown-up talk at all costs…” Dean glared at him, but Sam continued, unaffected. “ _But_ that kind of heart to heart is a luxury that’ll have to wait until this case is done. Sorry, Cas.”

“It’s okay. You’re right, of course,” Cas said, eyeing the spoon he damaged. Even here, in this comfortable bubble of domesticity, his otherness intruded, like a snake in the orchard. He could not escape it.

“It’s just a spoon,” Dean said quietly.

Cas made a vague noise, unable to gather his thoughts. He grasped both ends of the spoon and pulled. The metal unkinked with a clink. It was straight and usable again, but with pale, thin lines where it had bent under stress.

“Cas…” Dean began to say. But he was cut off by the insistent beep from the videolink in the living room. A cloud seemed to fall across the table. Dean got up, wiping his mouth as he did so, and walked over to it warily. He checked that Sam and Cas were both well out of the frame before accepting the call. “Hello?”

A woman answered: “Hi, uh...I’m hoping to speak to Sam?”

“Sam? What do you want with--”

But Sam was already out of his seat and moving across the room. He practically pushed Dean out of the way, and Cas saw Dean give a startled look before schooling his face into something more neutral. “Jess! I didn’t expect to hear back from you so soon.”

“Guy calls me up at five thirty in the morning and says he has a mission, I figure it’s gotta be kind of important, Sam.” Castiel could hear her smiling from where he sat, and he watched Dean’s face undergo a complicated set of small changes as he returned to the kitchen. He turned his attention to contemplating that particular mystery, but suddenly Dean was hauling Castiel to his feet and guiding him back into the bedroom. Cas had a brief moment of panic--this was how Dean had dragged him inside on the night when, no---no, because Dean’s grip slid down to tangle their fingers together as he closed the door.

“Dean, what?”

“That’s _Jess_ ,” Dean said, as though it explained everything. At Cas’ blank look he added. “He’s been mooning over her for a whole damn year. God knows why he’s got her calling now, but a good wingman knows when to get out of the way. And I, my friend, am one of the very best.”

“Wingman?”

“Yeah, you know. They help, ah, steer things in the appropriate direction for deserving parties?” When Castiel continued to stare at him, he added: “You know, relationship-wise? Getting people together?”

“You mean...for sex? Why would Sam be trying to procure sex at this hour, with someone hundreds of miles away?”

Dean’s eyes widened at that. “Wow, you have a surprisingly dirty mind. Which, you know, awesome, but uh, no. Not always for sex. I mean, sometimes, yes, but also for other things. Romance. Relationships. That kind of...that kind of thing.” Cas had lost the thread of Dean’s stammered explanation, admiring instead the way he seemed to blush with his whole body, the way he could practically see the rush of blood sweep across his skin. “Uh,” Dean said, and Cas snapped his attention back to Dean’s eyes. “You know, sometimes people, they...they just like to spend time together. They, um, they make each other happy just by being around each other.”

“Like you like spending time with your brother.”

“Uh, no. Not...not exactly,” Dean said, going an even deeper shade of pink. “Like...um.” He closed his eyes. “Amelia?”

The name hung heavily, sinking to the floor like a gust of cold air, and Cas stared at Dean, trying to figure out why he’d said it at all.

“What Jimmy felt for Amelia was that kind of thing. What he felt for Gabriel is like what I feel for Sam. So you’ll know it. Secondhand.” His blush had gone, and now he seemed rather pale. Cas realized that Dean was still holding his hand, and that his fingers had tightened almost painfully as he’d spoken. Cas thought of Amelia’s face, and ignored the bitter tang that tainted her smile like a poison. A strange warmth suffused the memory, but he felt it at a slight remove, like a stone that held the sun’s warmth long into the evening. Then he looked up at Dean and _oh_. Perhaps he understood what _heat_ was, after all.

“Right,” Cas said, pressing himself against Dean and pushing him slowly to the wall. “Right. Yes. I see.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmm,” he said, without any hope of eloquence, as he leaned in and kissed Dean’s mouth. It was so warm, so sweet, in a way that had nothing to do with the sugar or the coffee from breakfast, that Cas wanted to chase the taste right to its source. “But you’re wrong.”

“I’m...I’m-- _Jesus_ \--I’m wrong?” Dean asked in a half-stupor. He put some space between them. “About what?”

“Firsthand,” Cas said, kissing the tattoo he had not had a chance to properly examine the night before. “You said I’d know it secondhand. But I know it firsthand.” He stopped, suddenly a little unsure. He took a breath. “This is mine. Right?”

Dean laughed, a low sound that was almost as drugging as his kisses. “Yeah, it is.” He curled his fingers around the back of Castiel’s neck, bringing their foreheads together. “It’s all you.” They leaned together for another kiss, but were startled apart by the sound of Sam bursting in through the door.

“So get this!” Sam said, then stopped for a beat as he took in their position. Then he continued on, as though he saw nothing unusual. “I asked Jess to do me a favor this morning and she’s already pulled it off.”

“Favor?” Dean asked, sidling away from Cas and turning to face Sam. His voice seemed rougher than usual. Cas hoped he wasn’t getting a cold. “What kind of favor?”

“A...hugely illegal one, actually,” Sam said. He averted his eyes for a moment, clearly struck by a pang of guilt, but then smiled again. “And she came through, Dean.”

“ _You_ asked your girlfriend for an illegal favor?” Dean grinned. “That’s my boy!”

“She’s not...anyway, yes, I did.”

“But I’m confused,” Cas cut in, watching them both carefully. “What favor did you ask?”

“Well, you know the prototype database? The one you said you never had access to?”

Something seemed to stutter to a halt inside Cas’ chest. “Yes,” he said. He formed the edges of the word carefully, as though they might cut his tongue.

“Well, Tyrell gave us your file, but a bunch of data had been redacted. I remembered what you said earlier about...about your calculations, and then I remembered something Naomi said when I toured the lab.”

“What...what did she say?” The dead space behind his ribs shuddered painfully back to life.

“When she was talking about the synthetic memory system experiment they were running--that’d be you--she also mentioned a series of failsafes. One of them was to do with incept dates.”

Cas must have staggered slightly, for suddenly Dean’s hand was on his shoulder, almost vice-like.

“Sam, get to the point,” Dean said, guiding Cas to sit down on the bed. “Please.”

“Right, sorry. One of the D.O.D subcontractors is based near Stanford. I sent Jess some...things I should not have sent, and she used the info to sweet-talk one of the guys in Tyrell’s R and D department into sending over the redacted information. Tyrell’s share prices have taken a huge hit since the thing at the Eyeworks, so they practically peed themselves in their haste to send it over.”

“Holy shit, Sam, that took _balls_.”

“Thanks,” Sam said, sounding pleased.

“I meant _her_ , you dork. You’re taking her out for dinner the minute you get home.” Dean smiled at Sam’s thunderous expression. “But that was a pretty slick move on your part, too.”

Cas sat completely still as they talked, and it wasn’t until he heard a tearing noise that he realized he’d been twisting the sheets in his hands.

“Sorry,” Sam said, sheepishly. “My point is this: we’ve got all of it, Cas. Everything you might ever want to know. Including incept dates.”

“I don’t…” Cas looked away from them then, from their hopeful, kind faces. _You ask and receive not, for you ask amiss_. “I don’t know if I want to know. What if it makes me…” He could not name his fear, though he felt it sharply. Death might be permanent, but the process of dying was only temporary; he would bear it as he bore all things: with patience. But it was easier to accept the physical realities of decay in solitude. The thought of subjecting someone else--of subjecting _Dean_ \--to those realities seemed an unbearable cruelty.

Sam’s smile fell a little. “Okay, Cas, I get it. I do. But I think I need to tell you one thing, because...I saw your face this morning. Your calculations are wrong.”

“What?” His stomach clenched. “Over or under?”

“Sam what are you…”

But Sam cut Dean off. “Uh, under.”

Cas closed his eyes and nodded. “I see.”

“The original incept date was forty three months ago.”

Cas’ eyes flew open at that, and he instinctively pulled at the collar of his shirt. The skin underneath was unblemished. “But that’s impossible. By this late in the lifespan, there would be…”

“The _original_ incept date, Cas. Yours isn’t fixed. You might as well not have one at all!”

“That’s _impossible_ , Sam,” Cas said again, much more harshly than he meant to. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Every single being--replicant or otherwise--has an incept date. A birth date.”

“Yeah, but not every one of them has a date that resets itself.”

There was ringing in Cas’ ears that seemed loud enough to deafen the city. “I don’t understand.”

“Every time you sleep, Cas, the incept date resets itself. That’s the failsafe Naomi mentioned. _You’re_ the failsafe. Look, they had to keep the code _somewhere_. But they couldn’t very well keep reseting you without alerting you, and all of your colleagues, about who you are. So they modified it. The code cycles and resets itself, over and over.”

Cas’ throat caught as he swallowed, but he made himself ask: “Killswitch?”

Sam’s mouth thinned. “Still there. Sorry.”

“No, that’s just as well. To have a self-perpetuating code with no killswitch would be sloppy. Eventually, the subject would begin to notice the lack of aging. It would have to be retired the, uh, old-fashioned way. This way is cleaner. It leaves the rest of the code untouched. It can be done with an injection. It would take minutes, like going under anesthesia. Completely painless. In theory.”

“Okay, wow, so, this is creepy as hell and we can stop talking about this in the third person now,” Dean said, his eyes darting uneasily between Sam and Cas.

“Sorry,” Cas murmured. “I’ll learn to turn that part off, eventually.”

“It’s okay,” Dean said. The bed sagged a little as he sat down next to him. “I’m just thrilled that, uh, you know…”

“Me, too,” Cas said, resting his head against Dean’s shoulder. He closed his eyes. “Me, too.”

Distantly, Cas heard the beep of the videolink again, and Dean, placing a final kiss to the top of his head, rose to answer it.

“Cas, this is good,” Sam said quietly, after Dean had departed. “We were due for a win.”

“Yes,” Cas said. “We were.”

“Uh, Sam?” Dean called from the living room, drawing out the one syllable until it was almost two. Cas saw how Sam was instantly on alert. “We’ve got a situation here. We need to go _now_.”

****

Dean let Sam handle the pretext. The address they’d been given for Kevin Tran (current condition: critical but stable) turned out to be in a dismal-looking building in an even more dismal part of town. Things skittered away from them as they walked towards the dour bulk of the apartment block.

Benny had called them from the scene and told them not to bother coming over; there was nothing they could do now. He had sent through the photographs, anyway. Dean had known, theoretically, that a man’s head could shatter from sufficient pressure. He’d also (again, in theory) known that one’s eyeballs could be pushed into the skull cavity. But Tyrell’s head had been just...gone, a pink film coating the cool white surfaces of the office, fanning out several feet from a jagged ivory jut that had once been a jawbone. He had opted not to replay the video.

“Christ, this kid lives in this dump _alone_?” Dean asked, under his breath. The whole place had a clammy sheen to it, a scrim of decay that seemed to thicken the air.

Sam jabbed the intercom button and it came to life resentfully. For a few moments no one answered. Then, quite suddenly, an uncertain female voice said: “Hello?” She sounded as though she were speaking from the bottom of a well.

“Uh, hello,” Sam said, attempting a kind of cheerful neutrality. “Is Kevin around?”

There was another burst of ragged non-noise. “Who is this?"

“Oh,” Sam said. “This is Eddie. I’m an old friend of Kevin’s. I, uh, I wanted to drop by and ask his opinion on...a skin graft I’m doing. Who is this?”

The link went dead.

“Well, that’s no way to treat a friend,” Dean remarked wryly.

“No, it isn’t.”

“How do you want to do this?”

“I’ll take the back way, pick the lock. There’s a fire escape,” Sam said. Eighty feet up, via external stairs. Dean had a look at them on the initial scan of the building.

“Yeah, that works,” Dean said, and hoped he sounded decisive rather than skittish. He typed in the keycode Benny had sent him, and entered the building.

On their move from Kansas to California--that great, westward flight through polluted prairies and tainted deserts--they had hopscotched through safe zones in a narrow corridor of green, toward the dim prism of the Pacific. In those days, you still had to approach California from the north if you had any hope of arriving safely. On the third day, they skirted around the bottom of the Yellowstone Exclusion Zone, in what was left of Colorado. They could not afford to go _in_ , of course, and Sam had cried all day.

Their father had lead them through downtown Denver and into a desolate part of the city, much like this, right by the wall. They spent the night in a crumbling cathedral, under the auspices of an old family friend called Pastor Jim. Dean had never seen the like. They lay on the floor, under piles of blankets, and watched the sunset bleed through the stained glass. There had been cracks in the ceiling, which had worried Dean. “I know it’s broken in places. But it’ll hold true,” Jim had said, pointing upwards. “Besides, that’s how the light gets in.” Dean and Sam had clung together, shivering in the whale-bellied dark, and gazed up, astonished at the stars that appeared in the dark spaces, like sparks thrown down from distant forges.

This building, for all its cracks, seemed as lightless as a tomb. The socket-eyed angels that held the chandelier brought only grey tidings. He eschewed the elevator, which looked like it might break apart at any moment, and climbed the stairs. He was thankful, for once, that there was enough dust to muffle his footfalls. He could hear a distant thrumming, far above his head, but could not say what it was. It made him uneasy.

The hinges of Kevin’s door creaked in protest as Dean eased it open, and he winced. He waited the space of a few skipped heartbeats, listening for any sign of either Sam or the woman who had answered their call. There was nothing. It was late afternoon, but the east-facing windows were already dark, lit only by the sodium yellow beams of streetlights. Vague shapes seemed to solidify out of the shadows. He held still and waited for his eyes to adjust.

“The hell?” Dean asked, under his breath, as a metallic glint flared up in the dark, then another, then another. A dozen penny-bright spots of light focused on him, before winking out again. Eyes. They were eyes. He gripped his gun, held it at the ready. But nothing came for him.

Where the hell was Sam? Had the lock rusted shut?

He stalked over to the place where a set of eyes had been, every nerve singing its raw tune of kill-or-be-killed. He saw...what _was_ it? Some kind of large bird? But no, it had the feet of a large cat, hideous, with claws curved like scimitars. It opened one eye at him and ruffled its wings irritably as he watched it. “Okay, so...that’s messed up,” he murmured, then moved on to the next. A gazelle? A horse? No, it tossed its head at his approach, and the creature revealed itself to be a unicorn. He stood, staring at it, with echoes of the star-wonder from that long ago cathedral hitting him through the gloom.

But the moment was short lived. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, as though a bolt of lightning were about to strike. Dean drew in a breath and began to turn, but something connected with his jaw, hard enough that it surely cracked the bone. He tasted rust on his tongue, and as he staggered backwards, he hit the bulk of the creature behind him. It gave a shriek and reared back, sending both him and his attacker toppling to the floor. In the queasy half light he saw her at last: impossibly blue eyes (these bent on him in fury rather than affection), dark hair, and a look to level mountains and boil seas. “You killed them,” Hannah spat, pulling his head back roughly by his hair. “I _loved them_ , and you killed them.” She knelt over him and pressed down, intent on crushing him. She was, he realized, going to make him watch her face as he died.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could grate out, through the blood in his teeth. But even as he said it, his hand groped wildly for his gun. His fingers brushed the familiar metal as his vision began to blur. Where the _hell_ was Sam?

“Tell it to your God,” she said, pressing harder, and his heart began to spasm in protest.

There, at last, a familiar weight in his hand. He got off a shot, through the shoulder, spattering himself with blood and sending her reeling backwards. She screamed and foamed like a storm. Again she came for him and again he fired, this time through the left eye.

The storm abruptly died, and in its place there was only a dead body. All Dean could do was stand, bloody and stupefied, as the remaining eye fixed him with its baleful stare.

“Well, well, isn’t this a wild hunt?”

Dean lurched towards the sound of the voice, so incongruously soft and calm. It was Lucifer, and he held Sam by the throat.

Dean raised his gun. Even with the arthritic trembling of his hands, he could probably make the shot. Probably. He hesitated.

Lucifer grinned at him, as though Dean had broadcast his thoughts. “Oh! Not very sporting, to fire on an unarmed opponent, huntsman. I thought you were good? Aren’t you supposed to be good men?” He pulled Sam closer to him. “Let’s make it a bit fairer, shall we? Drop your gun and kick it over. I’ll release your brother. Two to one, those are still decent odds. Well, perhaps not. But you never know; you might strike lucky.”

Dean did as he was told.

“Thank you, most reasonable. I’ll make the game a little fairer still, and do your brother the courtesy of letting him keep his. But first, an object lesson. Now, pay attention.” Lucifer smiled into the curve of Sam’s neck, inhaled the scent of his hair, and Dean felt cold dread pour itself through him like a black tide. Suddenly, there was a snapping noise. Sam screamed. “Are you proud of yourself? Pride, they say, goeth before the fall. That one was for Balthazar.” Sam screamed again. “And for Anna.” Sam held back the third scream, kept his mouth shut. “And for Hannah.” He shoved Sam forward, and Sam fell to his knees, clutching his hand. Dean saw it, now: the subtle machinery of his fingers mangled in the Devil’s grip. “Now we can play in earnest.” And suddenly Lucifer had disappeared, as though he had melted into the shadows. Dean’s gun was gone.

“Sam, you okay?”

Sam’s face was pale and drawn, gaunt with pain. “ _Fuck_. What do you think? Take my gun. Let’s find him.”

“Sam, you need to stay here. You can’t fight like this.”

“Like hell. _Take my gun, Dean_. Fine, fuck you, I’ll keep it. Let’s go.” He staggered to his feet and charged forward.

“God damn it,” Dean groaned. He sought some source of light, tried the nearest switch, but it was dead. Sam had already moved further into the building. “Sam, wait!”

There was a clattering outside and Dean remembered the fire escape, where Sam must have been jumped. He threw himself in that direction, out into the cold rain, and up, up. “Sam!” His foot slipped on one of the stairs, and an intense wave of vertigo struck him. He closed his eyes, counted to ten. He kept climbing.

There, at last, on the roof. Two dark figures daubed in what, Dean knew, was blood, circled each other in a vicious bolero. Someone was laughing. Dean was reminded again of bulls and bloodsport. “So glad you could join us, Dean! Such an extraordinary thing, to live in fear. Isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave!” Sam lunged at Lucifer, and he dodged, landing a kick as he passed, that sent Sam to the ground again. His gun clattered away from him.

Something in Dean snapped at the sight of his brother gasping on the ground. He charged. He caught Lucifer with the full force of his fist, and Lucifer’s head whipped back. He limped back a few paces and gave a mad grin. “Oh, now _that_ ’ _s_ the spirit. Now you, Sam. Come on, get up, or I’ll have to kill you! And you can’t play if you’re not alive.”

Dean roared, and fell on him again, and they grappled their way towards the edge of the building. Dean had the distinct impression he was being toyed with. Lucifer proved this a few seconds later, by felling him with a punch to the solar plexus. Dean seemed to flicker out of existence for a moment. When he came back, he felt the heel of a boot on his neck. “Do you know what happens, when we die?” Lucifer was asking him, miles above, with an expression of open curiosity. His wounds had begun to bleed freely. Drops of it landed in Dean’s hair. “Is there really a Heaven? I don’t think I would recognize it. I’m told it is like the Garden of Eden. But I am not made of clay, and I cannot dream of returning to dust.”

Any moment now the boot would press, the spine compress, crack, split open. Any moment now.

But it never happened. The pressure relented and suddenly there was a furious clatter of motion above Dean’s head and _no_ , Sam had tried to tackle Lucifer again, and now hung, suspended by one hand, twelve stories in the air. Dean could not get to his feet in time. He could only watch Sam fall.

But then Lucifer was bending down, grabbing Sam’s shoulder, hauling him back up, placing him on the ground next to Dean. Dean felt something cold and hard land by his head, and his eyes darted to it. His gun. Lucifer had given him back his gun. Before he had time to process this, however, Lucifer spoke again.

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched...c-beams glitter in the dark off the Tannhauser Gate.” His voice seemed to go brittle at the edges and splinter as they left his mouth. He dropped down to hands and knees, before sitting up, with considerable effort, and looking them both in the eye. His gaze remained fierce and bright, but was now only sad, and not angry. “All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in rain.” He drew a labored breath, and smiled at them again. “Time to die.”

His eyes stayed open.

****

When Sam woke, he was confronted with a featureless white ceiling and a buzzing florescent light. His pain, he noticed with some surprise, had retreated. Or rather, it was still there, but he found that he did not care. Some kind of opioid, then. He attempted to sit up, and succeeded, after a few minutes. His broken hand had been encased in a black articulated glove that held his fingers judiciously straight. It tingled slightly, from the nano-injection sites. That would cut the healing time in half, for which he was grateful, but Christ, it was going to be a hell of a bill. Then he remembered that Walker would be picking up the tab, and he grinned. It was a little lopsided.

“Good, you’re awake,” came a soft voice in the corner, and he turned his head as quickly as the painkillers would allow. Benny watched him with measured good humor. “Dean’s just gone for some coffee. Made me swear on my life to not take my eyes off of you.” He walked over and helped Sam sit forward, propping him up with a pillow. He poured a glass of water and watched as Sam drank it down in one long pull. Sam’s voice wasn’t quite working yet, so he could only nod his thanks, but Benny gave him a warm smile and a squeeze to the shoulder. “I’ll go find your brother.”

Dean’s expression was equal parts relieved and pained when finally came in the room, and he dragged a chair over to the bed and sat down heavily. Benny was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Sam said, smiling more certainly now.

“It’s over.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Why’d he do it, Sam?”

“Don’t know,” Sam said, closing his eyes. “Maybe...maybe he realized how much he loved life. Not just his. Ours. All of it.” He opened his eyes again. “Maybe he just wanted to be seen.”

“Mmm.” Dean suddenly seemed to remember he had a cup of coffee in his hands, and took a sip. He had a gash across his forehead, near the hairline, held closed with a row of butterfly bandages. “How’s the hand?”

“Don’t feel a thing,” Sam said, grinning.

“That’s because they gave you the good stuff. I insisted. You’ll be back up to snuff in three weeks, the doctors say.”

“The miracles of modern technology.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Dean stood, stretched. He looked very tired. “We’re good to go whenever you’re ready. Benny brought you some clothes. I’ve got to fill out some more paperwork.” Sam saw Benny materialize behind him, filling up the doorway.

“Be out in a few minutes. Benny, can I talk to you?”

If Benny was surprised, he didn’t show it. He gripped Dean’s elbow for a fraction of a second as he slid past. “Sure thing,” he said, as he sat in the seat that Dean had vacated. His look was patient and knowing. “You’re through, huh.”

“Finished.”

“You’ve done a man’s job, sir. You’ve earned your respite.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, swallowing thickly. “Benny?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell Walker that if he comes for me, or any member of my family, ever again, I will find him, and I will kill him. Without hesitation.”

Benny smiled. Sam could see, now, why Dean liked him so much. “Happy to oblige.” He stood and shook Sam’s uninjured hand. “I’ll take you and Dean back to your apartment.” With that, he left the room.

Sam swung his legs over the side of the bed and fought down a swirl of dizziness. He took a deep breath, set his feet on the cold, solid ground, and stood.

He would go back to Stanford tonight. He would agree to whatever sum the Shanghai council set. Tomorrow he would find Jessica, he would pull her to him and he would not let her go.

****

The bedroom was quiet and still. Castiel could almost hear the individual dust motes stirring as he breathed, though he knew this was probably a hallucination. He reclined silently in the middle of the bed, waiting, with his hands folded.

There was movement in the other room. He heard a low tumult of voices. Two he recognized, and one he did not. The unfamiliar one was now saying: “It’s a shame he won’t live. But then again, who does?”

Cas heard it all as though he were deep in a cave, and watched, from the corner of his eye, as a shadow advanced, clicking as it came. Footsteps, then. Someone had come for him at last. He closed his eyes as the door opened.

But the shot that hit was not the one he expected.

“Cas?”

He sat up. “Dean.”

“Oh, thank god.”

“I thought…there was an officer here.”

“I know.” Dean slumped onto the bed, half pulling Cas into his lap. “It’s okay.”

“Is it?”

“Do you love me?” Dean asked, with a sudden ferocity that seemed to come from nowhere.

“Yes.”

“Do you trust me?”

“I trust you.”

“Good. You wanted to go north? We’ll go north. I hate this city. My uncle has a cabin, right on the Canadian border, and he says we can use it as long as we want. Says he saw a deer there last week, can you believe it? A real one.”

“Dean…”

“I’m out. I’m done,” Dean cut him off. “It’s you and me now, you understand?”

Cas let out a breath. “I understand.”

Dean smiled, a look of pure relief. “So we’ll go north. Or south, if you’d rather. East or west. Hell, wherever you want to go, whenever you want to go. The world’s opening up again. We’ll see everything. And in a year or two, when they all think you’ve died, we can head to Stanford.”

“I’d like that.”

Dean kissed him. “Good. Eventually we’ll all be together again, and we can start living like real human beings. Job, mortgage, PTA meetings, the whole miserable thing.” Another kiss. “But for now, our time is ours. Okay?”

The plan was fragile and hopelessly flawed. But what worthwhile thing wasn't?  Dean pulled himself away for a moment, and looked Cas in the eye. Cas saw stars there, saw a hundred thousand everyday miracles arrayed in front of him, and he wanted them all, every single one.

Dean seemed to be waiting for an answer, as though it wasn’t obvious. “So, are you coming?”

Cas smiled. “Of course.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's the end, can you believe it? Sorry there was a delay, but this last part has taken me a long time to write and re-write and re-re-write. 
> 
> Lucifer's death monologue is taken from the film (the original screenplay has a much wordier version, which Rutger Hauer cut down onscreen), and a bit from Donna Haraway's _A Cyborg Manifesto_ (which is amazing). I hope I've done it justice. 
> 
> And yes, the part between Dean and Cas at the end is blatant romanticism, which doesn't feature in the book or the film. But I wanted to put that in there, so I did. It's partially inspired by the wonderful final chapter in linoresearch's extraordinary [The Sawdust Men](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2616455/chapters/5832974).
> 
> Thanks for reading along. This one was a real challenge for me. I hope you've enjoyed, or, at least, engaged.
> 
> ETA: Oh wow, look at [this](https://glaciergrace.tumblr.com/post/130479956773/cas-meets-cat) piece of fan art!
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Another gorgeous graphic that [eshtiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eshcaine/pseuds/eshtiel) very kindly made for this work. (Dean. In That Coat. Take a minute to think about that, friends. I'll wait.) Definitely check out her [graphics blog](https://electroglider.tumblr.com/), she's got some wonderful, evocative stuff.  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this was a mistake, but hopefully reading it won't be. I'll read dystopian fiction until my eyes drop from my skull, but I am a sap who would rather spare my darlings than kill them. Hopefully this has hardened me a little.
> 
> I have attempted to balance three canonical sources here: the book _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ , which is supremely weird and intricate in the way only Philip K Dick can be; the movie _Blade Runner_ , which has the advantage of being streamlined and atmospheric if a little inconsistent on the world building (and also--Harrison Ford, mmm.); and _Supernatural_ , of course. I hope I have managed to incorporate them into something resembling coherency, and that everyone is true to character. Please let me know if you have any questions, or if something doesn't make sense. Oh, and if there are any typos, please let me know.


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